


Star of Water

by Quiddity



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood, Fantasy, Gore, M/M, There's going to be lots of tags for me to add as I go along, They're demon hunters it's gonna be graphic, Violence, demon hunter AU, inaccurate history
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-02-01 23:40:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 27
Words: 46,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12715221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quiddity/pseuds/Quiddity
Summary: The Moon Goddess rules over the Galra, the hunters, those who she’s gifted with the power to hunt the demons plaguing the land. Tragedy finds Kolivan witnessing a dear friend’s demise, and him inheriting the role of temple leader. Still reeling from the loss and a temple’s worth of problems weighing on his shoulders, he’s determined to do whatever he can to help the people in a land where even nature seems to be against them.Kolivan insists on going alone. He wants nothing more than to simply throw himself into his work and make up for his failings. But at his first stop he meets Lance, a young acolyte working in the Watchet temple with dreams of becoming a hunter much like Kolivan. He also seems determined that Kolivan will not being doing anything on his own anytime soon.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This has been something that I've had simmering on the back burner for like six months at this point and I'm beyond excited to finally be able to post it! I blame ashcott on tumblr for just flinging me this entire premise when I mentioned "Kolivance" and then never discouraging me when I took him seriously and made an entire fic around it. In fact, I ripped quite a few elements right from his ideas so, gotta credit him. 
> 
> Just to be upfront with y'all, in case you didn't read the tags, this is going to be heavy on the horror elements (the tags!) and lighter on the romance. As Ashe put it 'there's not exactly a beach episode' in here. But you all know I love my slow burns. I've gotten myself very excited for this fic so I hope you'll like reading. 
> 
> I also wanted to try to write something in a serial style? Where it updates more regularly, but the chapters are shorter. This fic will update on Mondays, and I plan for most of the chapters to be between 1,000 - 1,500 words.

**__**

“Please, you have to help us. Nana, she went missing this morning. We’ve looked all over the village, through all the fields, even asked the trader if he’s seen her wandering around when he came through this afternoon. Nothing! Hunters, I beg you. You of all people know what demons do to normal folk lost after dark.” Kolivan listens to the plea from the butcher’s wife politely, but he’s not about to get his hopes up either. The woman in question is in her nineties, probably the oldest person within fifty miles and… well, saying the things he’s thinking would likely be blunt to the point of cruelty. 

Kolivan glances to Ulaz next to him and knows that it’s not his call to make. Ulaz is the one dressed in the leader’s wrap, deep purple and decorated with the lavender triangles that signified him as the leader of the Moon Temple and all of the Galra who lived within its walls. Their eyes meet, and Kolivan glances minutely beyond his shoulder, where the sun hangs orange and heavy just above the horizon. 

It will be getting dark before they even make it past the village gates. It’s difficult to admit, but there’s little hope of finding this woman alive, much less unharmed. Kolivan twitches his ear, trying to will Ulaz to read his thoughts. They had come out here to pick up water, nothing more. Their job was to hunt demons, not retrieve confused old ladies or haul remains in the middle of the night and ask for attack. It was an unnecessary risk. 

“I’m sorry,” Ulaz starts. Kolivan relaxes a little. Ulaz had always tended to be much more willing to stick his neck out on short notice, but he was a good leader for a reason. “I’m sure you’re worried sick over her. I don’t see the harm in sparing a few hours looking for her. Either way, we’ll come back here and give you an update.” Kolivan tenses, and fights the twitching urge to pull his ears back and show his displeasure. He should have known better. 

“Thank you! I last saw her early this morning, she was leaving by the northern gate to fetch some eggs from our friend down the road, but they said she never showed. She’s surely in that direction,” the woman says. She’s nearly in tears. Kolivan nods politely, but it’s Ulaz who sets a reassuring hand on her shoulder and gently turns her back into the house with a promise that they’ll return with news either way. 

“Someone,” Ulaz says. His voice low and hushed, like they’re tracking deer. He points down the hill, near the riverbank has run low and nearly dry. “There.” Kolivan tips his head and looks through the trees. A hunter’s vision is at its best at night, sharpened by their goddess’s favor. After a few seconds he locates the form. Wrapped in a dark cloak, the form shivers a little, as if it’s cold or feeble. 

“Go slowly,” Kolivan whispers back. “It’s late and this area has been more dangerous than usual ever since that massive storm last month.” Ulaz looks around them, as if Kolivan is more suspicious of their surroundings than the shivering person down by the river. Without another word, Ulaz starts down the hill. Kolivan sighs tiredly and follows several paces behind. 

"Ma'am?" Ulaz asks. He steps closer. The sound of crunching leaves is so loud in Kolivan's ears they twitch back a little. A twig snaps and the sound seems to echo in his head.   
  
"Ulaz..." Kolivan starts. He takes a step back from the hunched form just as Ulaz takes steps nearer. The minute trickle of water echoes through the trees and Kolivan’s fur stands on end. It feels off. All of it. Not only the missing woman they’re after, but the reports of missing livestock and children from nearby villages. How dark the forest is despite the waxing moon. That furious storm that had ripped through their temple and caused a month’s worth of damages. This old crone hunched over herself at the dry riverbed sends off a hundred bells in his head. It’s just not right.    
  
Ulaz's shoulders slump minutely as he glances at Kolivan. "Relax. She's probably just tired and confused. She’s been missing all day. It's so dark tonight that anyone could get los-" 

The rest of his sentence runs down his throat in a gush of blood.   
  
Kolivan's hand twitches to the handle of his blade in the same instant Ulaz's expression shifts from shock to pained understanding. Blood runs down his neck in two pulsing rivers, staining the front of his wrap down to the stomach. Kolivan jerks his blade from his hip. Ulaz actually reaches up for where his own rests across his back. The old woman slams into Ulaz before he can draw his weapon and both go sliding across the forest floor towards Kolivan.    
  
Ulaz's grunt of pain is nearly drowned out by the old woman's scream. Or what they had thought was an old woman. The thing that appears from under the hooded cloak can barely be called human like. One mouth stretches from ear to ear in the flat white expanse of its head, filled with multiple rows of needle sharp teeth. A mottled, blackish tongue lolls out of it's mouth and flickers through the deep gash in Ulaz's neck. Ulaz makes this soft, pained gurgle. Kolivan's attention snaps and he springs into action.   
  
He closes the remaining space between them in a couple quick steps. He jerks his blade up, swings it down and jabs it between the demon's ribs with a wet crunch. It shrieks, claws sinking into Ulaz's chest, ripping at his blood stained wrap. Kolivan tugs his sword from the demon, jams it in again at the base of the neck. The demon shakes and its head cracks and pulls at Kolivan's sword as it's head twists backward and a second mouth falls open around eye level.   
  
Kolivan hears himself snarl as he plants a foot in its side and kicks it back as he pulls his blade from its twisted flesh. He rears back and swings his blade down. Purple light ghosts around his fingers as he channels his magic and hardens the air around his blade and strengthens the impact of his swing.  Metal screams as he catches it in the top mouth's teeth and keeps going. The top of its head flips off and into the dry forest undergrowth.    
  
Thick, black smoke billows up from the new top of its head. Its first mouth hangs open, panting, bloodied tongue hanging past its chin. It plants one hand on Ulaz's face as it turns towards Kolivan and when it pushes Ulaz's neck gives a snap that rips the bottom out of Kolivan's stomach.    
  
" _ Uoy nopu si lleh fo htarw eht dna nepo si latrop eht, _ " it hisses. Kolivan holds his breath to not breathe the smoke and brings his blade down again. The rest of it's head thuds to the ground and the body goes stiff, twitching, convulsing, the shape under the cloak shrinking down to nothing in a plume of smoke.   
  
Kolivan hooks the tip of his sword into the cloak and flicks it off of Ulaz and over the shrinking remains of the demon's head. He pulls his hood off, tugs around the extra fabric to cover his mouth and nose as he kneels beside Ulaz. There's no point in checking if Ulaz is alive. His neck is snapped and the wounds made by the demon's claws are stretched wide and gaping. Kolivan can see the soft white gleam of bone and the bleeding has slowed to an oozing trickle. Kolivan sighs into his hand, sheathes his sword and considers how long it will take him to get Ulaz's body back to the temple. 

And he still has to go back to the village and tell the woman their search yielded nothing.

* * *

  
  
They say death is like a foggy night. The limbo between truly alive and truly dead is a flat marsh covered in a rolling fog as far as the eye can see. Because to get to the afterlife, one must pass through a place where demons move and freely control the world, and a demon would never let a soul through their claws, much less one of the confused souls of the recently deceased.    
  
The only way through the marsh is by following the light of the moon.

Kolivan looks out the window of Ulaz's - no, his room, now, that overlooks the courtyard of the Moon Temple at night. He sees the even shapes of the tiled floor and the less even stoned walls. The huge stack of Ulaz's funeral pyre. The moving forms of the other Galra, the hunters. He tries to imagine everything covered in a deep bed of fog, and just the thought of being so out of tune with the night, of not being able to see, makes a twinge of anxiety twist in his chest.    
  
Kolivan blinks, sighs. He can't remember a time when he hasn't been able to see on even the darkest nights. The Moon Goddess bestowed that greatest gift of hers on him when he was still half a child, and by now the thought of losing it seemed almost unimaginable. He turns and looks around the room and reminds himself it could happen all too easily.    
  
Ulaz's room is nearly completely empty. The only thing remaining is the furniture. The low table. A firm chair. A desk and a small bed frame. Even the mattress and sheets are gone. All of it tossed onto the pyre with Ulaz's body. It was the only way to be sure Ulaz could make it through the fog to the other side.    
  
It wasn't the same as some other cultures, where material objects were passed along to the afterlife with the dead either through burial or burning. It didn't work like that, and besides, the Goddess provided everything for those passed on doing her work anyways. Material connections were more the problem in the first place. They manifested themselves in limbo as fireflies. Flitting around in the fog, casting their light and spreading it around. They're distractions. Obstacles getting between the departed and the Moon Goddess's light.    
  
The recently dead were confused, hurting with the pain of whatever wounds killed them. It was disorienting to lose one's Galra senses so suddenly and the fireflies only made the confusion worse. By burning everything the dead possessed, they would burn away the connections.The fireflies would disappear and the dead could follow the moonlight as easily as they could.    
  
And in life, Ulaz's story would be over.    
  
A tall, muscled shape moves into the doorway and pulls Kolivan from his thoughts. Antok tips his head down and leans into the room a little. 

"Kolivan," he rumbles. "It's time," he says. Kolivan sighs and reaches down to pick up the last of Ulaz's belongings. The blood stained wrap draped over the back of the chair. Kolivan rubs his thumb over the stiff, red stain and thinks it's time he took over as leader of the Moon Temple.

* * *

 

Kolivan drapes Ulaz's wrap near the top of the pyre, tucking it between two logs where everyone can still see it when he steps back. In the dark, the red of blood blends near seamlessly with the dark blues and purples of the temple colors. Kolivan turns and faces the rest of the courtyard. 

Everyone currently in the temple is gathered around in a tight pack near the pyre. It's a small group of Galra, eighteen in all, and short only by the six hunters working outside of temple grounds.    
  
Yesterday they were twenty-five. Today they mourn the number shrinking by one. The Moon Goddess has never accepted many followers, and the loss of one of their own stings.    
  
Antok lifts his torch and dips the end of it into a brazier. A couple seconds and the torch flickers to life. Antok approaches, and Kolivan takes it from him, but Antok steps back Kolivan is left standing in the space between the pyre and the rest of the hunters, a new leader with the scraps of his speech fluttering in his mind like ashes. Kolivan lifts his torch.    
  
"May the only thing that remains of Ulaz on this side be our memories of him," he says. His voice echoes faintly throughout the courtyard. In the silence that follows, Kolivan tosses the torch into the pyre. Clothes and fabric catch first, then books, then the wood that makes up the bulk of the pyre. Within a few minutes the entire courtyard and temple front are lit in the bright oranges of firelight.    
  
He spends the next hour meeting everyone in the temple near the pyre. He listens to their final words of farewell to Ulaz as well as their first words of greeting to him as the new leader. It feels fake. He’s still wearing his lieutenant’s robes. The Moon Temple doesn’t wear clothes for mourning lest the dead cling to them. He might as well be out for morning meditation and everyone is now referring to him as ‘Leader’. 

When the last member steps away, Kolivan retreats towards the temple gates. The Moon Temple is sparsely decorated by other temple standards, but their one indulgence is a statue dedicated to their goddess. She stands about twelve feet tall, lovingly carved from a single piece of oak. She hasn’t been fully finished yet, however. Their first statue had stood for nearly two centuries, dutifully protected from ill weather, cold and bugs. Last month the storm had snapped one of her arms and lightning had scarred weathered wood and hollowed her out to coals. She’s dressed in a long, flowing gown that hangs from bare arms. Her features are fine and regal, her expression serious but hiding her quiet ferocity. Her hair thick and trailing down past her waist and when her statue is painted, it’s glowing white. Antok’s taken his time with this piece, and he’s done an excellent job of it. All that’s left are the finer details before they paint and seal the statue against the weather. 

She’s beautiful but most importantly, she isn’t Galra. They Galra aren’t even of her original creation, though she had been responsible for the shift for as long as anyone could remember. Legend said the Galra were a type of higher demon, or an effect of possession, but that it was the goddess who had tempered them and trained them for their current purpose. She was the one who broke the Moon Temple apart from the other five in her quest against evil. 

“Leader?” Kolivan’s pulled out of his thoughts and turns to find Thace. “Some of the others are suggesting that a bottle of moonshine might lift our spirits a little.” 

“They know they’re more than welcome to it,” Kolivan hums. Thace looks at him flatly. 

“We know. We want to pour you a couple glasses.” Thace motions for him to follow back to the temple he steps in beside him. “But before that, I feel like there’s some rather important business to remind you of.” He hardly waits for Kolivan’s tired glance before he goes into detail. “The Lovat river has completely dried up. It’s getting harder and harder for us to get water. The barrels you brought in will last us another week or so, but if we don’t find the reason for why the river’s dried up, I’m worried we’ll be hard pressed finding a big enough shipment next time. So before we open the bottle I was going to ask if you would assign-” 

“I’ll go.” 

Thace watches him hard. “You’ll what? Will you at least choose someone to go with you?” Kolivan shakes his head. 

“I doubt I’ll need it. It’s probably just a beaver’s dam or something,” he says. “Besides, it’s affecting everyone and since I’m new, I want them to see that I’m working on it.” Thace doesn’t lessen his stare. 

“Are you absolutely sure? Because it feels like maybe-” Kolivan cuts him off with a soft grumble as they climb the temple steps. Kolivan opens the door for him.

“I’m not. I’m fine on my own. We’ve all been busy lately and I would prefer everyone here to leave in teams instead of fussing over me,” Kolivan says. Thace shrugs, admitting defeat. There was only so much arguing one could do with a temple leader, and while Kolivan hadn’t expected to use that perk so quickly, he was finding that it came in handy. 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Antok would have called him a coward to his face. Regris would have insisted on following him to the point of sneaking out of the temple after him. With Thace, all he has to suffer is the long, knowing gaze following him in the mirror as he shrugs on his leader’s wrap, freshly made to fit him after Ulaz’s was burned with him the night before last. 

“You’re absolutely sure you want to do this on your own?” Thace asks. Kolivan belts his sword around his waist and cinches it firmly. “It’s no problem for one of us to go with you.” A question he’s been asked a hundred times already.

“This is a small problem. It’s more work for you to stay here and give out the rest of the assignments for the few days it will take me to find a dam or a fallen tree,” he straightens out his clothes, makes sure his wrap falls neatly about his shoulders. “I want people to see me in this.” 

“And know that Ulaz has died?” Thace adds softly. Kolivan looks around the room, his only belongings moved in so far being a small chest of clothes and a new mattress with a change of sheets. 

“There’s fewer of us to feed and we don’t need as much as some of the other temples, but there’s no reason for us to turn away a few extra donations if they come in,” Kolivan says simply. On his bed is a small sack containing a change of clothes, a blanket, and a few rations. Kolivan takes it and slings it over his shoulder. “Thank you for your help, Thace. I’ll be back soon.”

* * *

 

He’s used to walking these roads, and he’s also used to riding in the backs of these rickety open wagons. But sitting above the rear axle of this cart as they pass through the city gates of Watchet feels different. Heavier. More important. It was one thing to mill about and work with the city guard as one of the general members, teaching them how to hunt the odd demon that would encroach near city grounds in the dead of night. 

It was another thing entirely in his new clothes, this wrap that signified his new position, watching the familiar city thicken and close in as they go deeper from the gates. He hasn’t been to Watchet in more than a month and the differences are apparent. It’s early morning, but there are more people out in the streets than he’s used to. Women with children pulling at their skirts, young men with small carts of goods, elderly couples taking their morning walks. 

He’s quick to notice the one commonality between them all. The buckets in their hands. It’s not a surprise. He’s here to sort out a water problem, and for the past several weeks all have been going to the wells to get their water instead of the riverbanks that run through the center of the city. The second thing he notices doesn’t come to him until the cart turns towards the East and nearer the city’s crowded center. Everyone is heading towards the same direction. 

Towards the temple, of course. 

Watchet’s temple is aligned with the element of water, as well it should be, considering its place in the middle of a bend in the Lovat river, made centuries ago when the people of Watchet had cut away the land and led the water into a perfect curve fit for a simple, but well built and beautiful temple. Coming from the South, people can follow the land road right up to the temple steps. Coming by any other way, visitors must pass over the long bridges of stone as they cross the river. Kolivan is jostled over the rough paving stones as the cart pulls up onto the bridge and Kolivan looks out over the side. 

While the river is not completely dry, it is little more than a wide cut of mud and puddles. Kolivan watches as children linger and play around the banks in the bristly dry weeds lining either side, amusing themselves while their parents no doubt wait in line at the temple for their daily ration of water. The cart passes the peak height of the bridge, speeding up for just a second when they start down the other side. A pinch grows in the small of Kolivans back. 

The cart only gets halfway across the courtyard before it pulls to a stop. Nearby, a knot of boys notice him, his purple furred skin and, as he hops off the back of the cart, his inhuman height, and their excited whispers tickle his sensitive ears. The driver ties up his horse and gives Kolivan a sheepish smile. 

“Sorry, hunter, but this is as close as we can get with the crowd at this time of morning,” Kolivan shakes his head, motions to the cart’s load of cloth, and when the driver smiles, he takes a few over his shoulder to bring with him into the temple. 

“It’s fine. I don’t mind walking the rest of the way,” he says. With his free hand he reaches into the breast pocket of his robes and pulls out a few coins to pay him for the ride. “Thank you.” He turns and heads towards the crowd of people, each of them holding a bucket and shivering in the early spring morning. He’s tall enough that he’s easily a head above than even the biggest man, the bolts of cloth in blue and white held safely over their heads. They part easily enough for him, partly for his oddity, partly because they know a hunter, a  _ Galra _ , doesn’t show themselves in daylight for any little reason. 

He sees the well, and the three Watchet temple acolytes pulling up bucket after bucket of water while the crowd huddles close and eager, dressed in the same colors as he holds over his shoulder. He passes them by and looks up the temple steps. At the base of them stands the god of the Watchet temple. 

The Moon Goddess had chosen to cast off her name at some point deep in history, but the other gods had never followed her in that. The name etched into the base of the statue reads  _ Blaytz.  _ Watchet’s god stands tall, broad shouldered, almost smiling out across the crowd gathered by the well. He’s dressed in loose fitting pants and a long sleeveless jacket. But it’s not his clothes that are colored like the blue on the Watchet robes, it’s his skin. Because of his open, almost smug expression, he’s always struck Kolivan as the adventurous type. He very well might be. Many of Watchet’s scholars conjectured that he may have been some kind of pirate or adventurer. But most people in Watchet would agree that he was more of a romantic than anything. Kolivan pulls his eyes off the statue and starts up the broad, white steps leading into the temple. 

The front doors lead to a wide, open room, lined with tall windows that let in every inch of sunlight possible. On the far end of the room stand two people at one of the windows, looking out at the city and empty river bed.  At the Moon Temple, things would be winding down for the night, putting out candles, wiping down floors, closing window blinds to shut out the sun instead of letting it in, because the Galra were a kind that lived mostly at night. But instead of the morning bustling that’s going on outside, or that would have been happening at this time of morning in this temple in normal circumstances, there is near silence. 

Near. Because the red headed temple leader’s voice carries through the room, not like a bell, but like a trumpet. 

“Kolivan!” he calls. He lifts his hand in a quick greeting, then he bows quickly at the waist. Kolivan’s ears twitch back at how loudly his voice echoes through the room, but by the stiff, confident way Coran holds himself, he hardly finds it surprising that he worked as a royal advisor in the past. “Welcome to our humble temple, all the more humbler for our current ah, predicament.” 

Kolivan crosses the room quickly, sets down the cloth near the wall. “I’m sorry to see that, but I’m here to look into it, and hopefully it will be sorted out soon,” he says. Coran smiles at him politely, but Kolivan finds it easy to see it’s more politeness than genuine pleasure. 

“I apologize as well, to see that you’ve inherited this garb so suddenly. It- It had to have been only a few days ago…” Coran trails off. Kolivan nods. Behind Coran, the other person, a young acolyte Kolivan sees, rushes into the conversation quickly. 

“You’re really  _ Galra _ ?” He rushes, breathless. “I never thought I’d see you up close- I-” he shoves his hand out, completely heedless of the tone of their conversation. “I’m Lance. Can I show you around?”


	3. Chapter 3

A pause hangs between the three of them, Kolivan reeling over the speed of the subject change and Lance slowly, agonizingly, realizing what he’s done. Coran shoots Lance a sharp look, grabs his arm, and pulls Lance in front of him. As if he’s presenting a grandchild. 

“As he said himself, this lovely, hardworking… excitable, young man here is Lance. I apologize for the interruption,” Coran says. Kolivan sees his fingers dig into the meat of Lance’s arms until Lance winces. 

“I’m sorry- I know I should have waited, but I just got really- I overreacted finally seeing a hunter, you know?” Lance says quickly. Kolivan flicks one of his ears, but just nods to accept Lance’s apology. Rude, yes, but ultimately not a huge deal. 

“I haven’t been to Watchet in too long, Coran,” Kolivan starts. Coran lets go of Lance and lets the young acolyte wait to his side. “How long has the river been so low?” 

“It’s been a week since the Lovat river dried up  _ completely.  _ But the water level has been dropping for about a month.” Coran motions towards the front door, and the crowds outside. “As you can see, it’s becoming quite a big deal.” 

“Has there been any logging upriver? Earthquakes? Maybe a landslide?” Kolivan asks. Coran shakes his head. 

“No, if there’s anything like that going on, I don’t know about it. Of course, people have gone upriver to see if there’s a source of the problem but something… strange, always happens to them, and we can never get a straight answer,” Coran says. 

“Strange?”

Lance cuts in. “They get lost in a forest they’ve lived near all their lives. Or they come back having completely forgotten what they were sent out to do-” 

“Sacher and his two sons bagged a quite impressive buck a couple of weeks ago, and they were very confused when no one was impressed because they had no answer for the water business,” Coran adds. 

“Or, they just… never come back at all,” Lance finishes. Then his eyes take on a little of his earlier excited shine. “Is that why you’re here?” 

“I’m here because my temple is also starting to suffer from the lack of water. I’m not confident that there’s anything particularly interesting going on yet,” Kolivan says. “If you have some, I’d like to look at a few maps and put together a path to follow before I go upriver to check this out. I’ll be leaving tonight.” Coran nods, then pushes Lance towards him. 

“Lance here can show you around the temple, or just to your room if you’d like.” He thumps Lance so hard he puffs. Outside, the commotion swells. “He’s really quite knowledgeable, despite his young age. For myself, it sounds like I’ve got to sort out some townspeople.” He’s hardly finished his sentence before he’s jogging off towards the front doors. 

Lance’s line of questioning starts before they’re even out of the main room, and it continues all the way down the hall, around the inner courtyard, and into the visitor’s quarters. 

“Were you always that tall?”

“No.” 

“Is it true you have night vision?”

“It’s better than most.” 

“You really sleep during the day?” 

“Yes, but it’s more habit than necessity.” 

“Why do hunters look like you do?” 

“It’s the manifestation of the Moon Goddess’s favor.” 

“Why?” 

“Because she decided it would be so.” 

“Have you been leader for a long time-” 

At this, Kolivan stops and stares, trying to school his expression more towards patience than the irritation he really feels. He sees Ulaz’s blood stained clothes hanging from the side of his pyre, smoking as the flames take hold. 

“No. Now Lance. I’m busy. Can you either find a map of this area, or find someone who can bring me one?” Kolivan asks stiffly. Lance’s smile is sheepish and more than a little shy. He takes a few steps away, then pulls open the next door on his left. He motions in. 

“Uh, well, this is your room. There’s an extra blanket in the closet and I’ll uh… ask someone to bring you something to eat while I’m out, okay?” Lance says. Kolivan wants to sigh tiredly, but holds himself back. This kid doesn’t have much of a scale between moods, it seems. 

“Thank you,” he says softly. Lance smiles. 

“I’ll bring you a map in a few minutes.”

* * *

 

Lance winds up coming back with both a tray of tea and a large piece of paper scrolled up gently under his arm. Lance sets the tray down in a corner of the low table in the middle of the room. Normally, temples would bring him a pot of hot water, but here there’s only a small cup with tea steeping in the bottom, along with a plate of a meaty stew. If he remembered correctly, Watchet was known for its dishes made from the river fish, but this looks more like venison. 

He says nothing. No water means no tea, and no fish either. 

“Thank you, this looks very nice,” Kolivan says politely. Lance settles down on the other side of the table and spreads the map open across the surface. It’s a wonderfully detailed map. Not quite so nice as something that would be hung up on the wall or kept in a library for study, but certainly on the upper end of what would be trusted with a visitor. 

Lance stands again to go to the desk and fetch a couple pieces of thin paper, quill and inkwell. “Usually I would have brought you some steamed fish or something, but well, fish have been kind of scarce lately, so I had to make do with some stew we had put on last night,” he says, handing Kolivan the writing utensils.

“I’m not picky,” Kolivan says simply, and starts to sketch out his own references. He starts with the city wall of Watchet, then a line to represent the Lovat river, taking care to match the length and curves of the lines on the map. Instead of leaving, Lance merely crosses his arms on the table and watches him. Kolivan sketches up perhaps twenty miles of river, where it starts to near the base of the old, nearby mountains. “Do you have anything to add?” Kolivan asks after a couple minutes of silence. 

“Uh…” Lance starts, apparently not realizing he’d been lingering. Then he clears his throat and points to a spot on the map. “Maybe here, where the river has some mild rapids and some falls. There’s a lot of rocks there, so maybe it’s been blocked.” He moves his finger further up, around where Kolivan has stopped his sketch. “Or maybe around here. There’s a spring that feeds the river as as it comes down the mountain.” Kolivan marks both on his map, along with a rough mark wherever he can see that the river naturally bends or narrows. 

“I need one more favor from you Lance,” he says. Lance perks up, all the eager, helpful kid wanting to do whatever he can to be useful. “Tell Coran, or any of the other temple members. It just needs to get around. Make sure people stay out of the riverbed and take care to protect or reinforce anything that could be swept away by water. When the river starts to flow again, it will probably come back quickly.” 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god i forgot to update this yesterday

Kolivan leaves the temple that night, map in hand. Coran offers him a few food rations, and even volunteers that one or two acolytes accompany him. But Kolivan is firm. He’ll go alone, and if something somehow happens to him like everyone else sent out to check into this problem then it will be none of Watchet’s loss. 

He takes a cart to the edge of town, but that’s as far as anyone will take him. It was dangerous to travel at night for anything less than an emergency. Demons lurk in the dark, and there’s nothing much more intimidating than the deep vastness of night, beyond the safety of firelight or city walls. Kolivan can’t begrudge the driver, nor does he take his comment about Kolivan’s choice of traveling time being madness to heart. 

It nearly common knowledge that all Galra were at least a little mad. Night was one of the more dangerous things in this land, and the Goddess had altered them to better live in it. It was only a natural train of thought. 

The first leg of his trip is easy. Watchet is surrounded by a wide ring of farmland. Normally around this time of year many of the fields would have already had their first crop planted, but the dry river has postponed many. More fields than not are tilled, but still empty, and as a result Kolivan can see all the way to the edge of the forest, impeded only by the occasional house or barn. Kolivan feels he can allow himself to relax a little as he walks, because at night there’s no one around to watch him, and only the most foolhardy demons would dare to approach him so openly. No, his only company for a couple of hours is seeing the occasional person no doubt heading home. Once, a curious dog follows him to the edge of his its property, and then it only yawns and trots back home to bed. 

Approaching the edge of the forest, however, is a much different story. The trees are tall, tightly bunched together, and a clear line marks where the forest has been cut away for farmland generations ago. Kolivan slows, his ears pulling back slightly, but he doesn’t allow himself to stop before he starts pushing quietly through the trees. His sight is hindered. Not by the dimming light, but rather by the simple fact that the trees crowd against each other and clutter the shapes of things. 

Kolivan is heading North, so he glances off to the West, towards the Moon Temple and western border of the forest. It had been only a mile or so in where he and Ulaz had found that demon posing as an old woman. Only about as far into the forest as he was now when Ulaz had met his end and Kolivan had lopped off the head of a thing billowing inky smoke from its wounds. Kolivan very much doubts he actually killed that demon. The smoke could have just as easily been its way of escaping, or trying to possess one of them. 

A twig snaps. Kolivan turns his ears back towards the sound and the thin fur on the back of his neck stands on end. 

The sound of his own breathing. The softest breeze moving through the trees. Six feet behind him, the crunch of leaves under something’s weight. 

Kolivan’s mind empties of anything besides the rush of adrenaline and visualizing where he’d heard that sound. His hand drops to his blade and he tugs it free in one quick, smooth motion as he turns and faces the sound as it steps out from behind a tree and-

He sees Lance. 

Kolivan stops, his blade half risen in a deadly swing, canines showing. Lance stares back at him, wide-eyed and pale, his own hand wrapped around the hilt of a dagger. Kolivan lowers his weapon but remains tense. 

“Drop it,” he growls. 

“What-” 

“The damn  _ weapon _ , Lance. Drop it.” Lance tosses the dagger to the ground. His hands go to a thin strap of rawhide tied over his shoulder.

“I have a bow too, take it off?” Kolivan nods. A small bow, and a thin quiver join the knife in the underbrush. Then he lifts his hands palms out. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” 

“Why are you following me?” Kolivan asks. He sheathes his own blade, kicks Lance’s weapons to the side. “I thought I was clear that I intended to go alone.” Lance has the sense to look properly scolded.

“I’m worried,” Lance sighs. “And- I really felt like this could be my chance to prove that I could keep up with one of… you guys.” Kolivan sighs thickly, looking out into the forest around them and thinking that the very last thing he needed was some kid distracting him.

“Keep up with one of the Galra?” Kolivan asks. “I’ll tell you now. You can’t, especially not right now. I’m not going out to hunt anything. I’m going to move a fallen tree, or pull down a beaver’s dam. If you wanted physical labor, you could have stayed in Watchet and pulled well water.” 

Lance grumbles, but Kolivan keeps going. “And even if I were hunting something, what could you do? I’m built for this. My Goddess has changed me specifically to protect others from demons and cut them down. You- you have magic, yes, otherwise you wouldn’t be working with the temple, but-” Lance cuts him off. 

“It’s not the same, I know. Okay? A lot of people have told me that, but how am I supposed to actually help anybody when I’m at the temple handing out water, or polishing floors or reading the same lines of scripture day in and day out? I mean, yeah, it’s got it’s place, but it’s not  _ enough.  _ It’s been killing me seeing the river dry up and just staying in the temple and waiting on other people to fix it for me. I want to do everything I can, and right now following you seems like my best chance,” Lance pants, all his breath spent on his little speech. Kolivan stares at him for a beat, then turns and continues on. Behind him he hears Lance scramble to pick up his weapons, then his footsteps thud through underbrush closer instead of retreating. 

“Go home,” Kolivan says. He doesn’t bother to look at him. 

“Not until I fix this water problem,” Lance pants behind him, his steps rushed to keep up with Kolivan’s longer gait. “I’m all the way out here, there’s no way I’m turning back now.” Kolivan bites the inside of his cheek. What’s he supposed to do? Insisting on sending him home is dangerous; they’re hours beyond the city gates. Kolivan is more than capable of fending for himself. A young temple acolyte more accustomed to city life than the outdoors is asking for death. It won’t even be a demon that does him in. It would be a venomous snake or a broken ankle. It would be irresponsible of him to go back to Watchet after this task is done and tell Coran he knowingly left one of his acolytes to protect himself. 

“Let’s come to an understanding then,” Kolivan says. “I’m not watching out for you. I’m not protecting you. You’re taking care of yourself. If you can’t keep up with me, you’re on your own. You break your leg, you’re on your own. You get tired and want to go home? You go home alone. You want to think you can keep up with me?” Kolivan asks, glancing at the youth over his shoulder. “Then prove it.” 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of my first batch of writing for this fic and the end of this slowish exposition phase. I had a lot of fun writing next week's chapter.

Kolivan almost hates to admit it, but the kid can actually keep up with him. At least in the sense that he doesn’t complain when Kolivan pushes him through a night-long trek. Lance doesn’t speak about not being able to see where he’s going, not about the twigs that catch him in the calves and arms and leave scratches in his skin, not about when Kolivan doesn’t slow for him all that much whenever he lags behind. They both simply push on, and Kolivan savors the fact that Lance doesn’t pester him with conversation when he keeps him moving. 

When the sun starts dusting the eastern horizon Kolivan tamps down the relief swelling in his chest and tells himself it’s more about Lance managing to stick with him through the night rather than the knowledge that whatever minor demons that are out are retreating to their hollows to escape the sunlight. The riverbed they’ve been following throughout the night shifts from a pitch black chasm to a wide, muddy ditch in the span of only a few minutes. Ahead of them he can see a little patch of grass where the trees give way to soft weeds. It’s bright enough, so now is a good a time as any to stop and rest for a few hours. 

Kolivan pushes into the tiny clearing and starts plucking up dry weeds and gathering twigs. He hears more than sees Lance come to a stop against a tree and gasp for breath. Kolivan keeps half an eye on the acolyte, equally expecting him to burst into complaints now that they’ve stopped or simply fall over asleep in exhaustion. Instead, Lance catches his breath, drops his pack next to Kolivan’s at the base of a tree, and starts to help him gather tinder. 

“You can either build a fire, or dig a hole in that riverbed until you find some water,” Kolivan says before Lance can get too far into his gathering. Lance straightens up again and glances between the muddy bank and the handful of kindling in his hands. Kolivan honestly takes this choice as an olive branch. It’s dry enough that lighting a fire and gathering enough fuel wouldn’t take much time at all. Lance has been up and walking all night when he’s not used to it, he’s tired, he’s scratched up. Even though he’s not dressed in the bright, silky robes of Watchet’s temple, his trousers and close cut shirt are scuffed and dirty from the trek. Kolivan isn’t entirely averse to giving him a break. 

“Alright,” Lance pants. He drops his kindling in a thinner patch of grass, snaps a thick branch off a tree and hops down into the dry riverbed to start digging. Kolivan pretends he doesn’t notice the attempt to impress him, though it does soothe his nerves a little knowing that Lance won’t be content to follow him and complain. But, well, they still haven’t run into a demon, and keeping him alive then will be an entirely different issue. 

Kolivan has a fire crackling merrily and is considering joining Lance in his search for water when he hears a victorious whoop. Lance flings his stick up onto the bank in a little spray of mud before he peeks over the side, breathless and his face streaked with dirt. “Hey, can you get the cookpot out of my bag?” 

“So,” Lance starts. He takes Kolivan’s cup from him, a small, smooth piece carved from dark wood, and gently tips it into the pot of steaming water. “How long are we staying here?” A soft blue glow pulses from the tips of Lance fingers. Frost starts to form against his skin and crawls up the side of the cup where water darkens the wood and the steam gutters out within a span of seconds. Lance gives him the cup. 

“Long enough for me to eat something and take a nap. If we leave in a few hours we can probably hit two or three places and still have time to sleep a bit more before dark. You should too, since you’ve been following me all night.” Kolivan says. He can’t resist his curiosity and dips his finger into the water. It might as well be spring fed instead of freshly boiled. It’s not a surprise that Lance can use magic; it’s a prerequisite to serve at any of the temples. That Lance’s magic would be associated with water when he’s serving at Watchet goes without saying. What’s more impressive is that Lance can summon and use his magic with such finesse in the middle of a conversation. It takes a lot of talent to ask him a question and not hand him a solid block of ice at the same time. 

He watches Lance draw and cool his own cup of water before he asks: “How did you manage that anyways? To follow me so far out of town without me realizing it.” Lance shrugs, downs his water and draws another cup. 

“My family lives in this forest, and I was here too up until last year when I joined the temple. I hunted and fished a lot so you just kind of learn to be sneaky and not let whatever you’re after know you’re there,” Lance says. Kolivan isn’t sure how much he loves the hunting comparison. “That, and you were so distracted you probably wouldn’t have noticed me following you past the farms until I had called for you.” 

Kolivan downs the rest of his own water and sets it safely away from the fire. “I don’t believe that,” he says, and he ends the conversation, pulling his bag over and tucking it behind his head as he stretches out on his back. Lance makes a quiet ‘mhm, sure’ beside him when he closes his eyes. Kolivan listens as Lance makes himself a pillow out of his pack and curls up on the other side of the fire. 

Kolivan decides he’s going to deal with Lance pointing out his distraction by simply ignoring it. He knows he’s been off ever since he’d first caught Lance following him. He’d been so hyperfocused on what  _ could  _ be out there stalking him that he hadn’t even noticed the actual person tailing him for hours. Kolivan covers his eyes with his arm to block out the last of the sunlight. 

He just hasn’t been sleeping enough lately. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lance is trying hard but I wonder how well he'll do when he sees what Kolivan actually does for a living?


	6. Chapter 6

_ “Help! Please!”  _

Lance pauses, squinting at the wall of dark woodlands to their side. A young woman? But… they’re so far out from Watchet. Well beyond the map Kolivan had sketched out before leaving. Maybe there was a village they didn’t know about? They were following the riverbed closely afterall, and people did tend to settle near them. 

But Kolivan merely keeps moving stubbornly forward. Lance picks up his pace, mindful of debris that will trip him up in the darkness. 

_ “Please! I’m begging you! Help me!”  _

Lance closes the last few steps behind Kolivan, panting. “Kolivan!” he barks. “Are you hearing that?” 

“Yes,” Kolivan hums. He hardly seems concerned as the woman pleads somewhere out in the darkness. He merely drops down into the bare riverbed when the reeds grow too thick to move through easily. Lance stumbles a little following him in. 

“Are… are we not going to help her?” Lance asks. Kolivan doesn’t even look back at him, says nothing. Lance glances to the woods, his heart aching with equal parts worry over the call for help and burning irritation for Kolivan’s reaction. “That’s it? You make a habit of just ignoring people when it’s not convenient for you?” 

The only reaction he gets out of Kolivan is a low growl, his ears twitching back minutely. With a huff, Lance gives up and makes to turn and climb back out of the river. His inexperience is better than nothing. 

He’s cut short when Kolivan grabs him by the back of his collar, He pulls him back in so hard he lands on his back, the air catching painfully in his throat. Kolivan kneels over him, totally blocking his view. Lance stares hard, angry, but worried at the same time.

“Don’t look at it. That’s not a woman you’re hearing. It’s a Chimera,” Kolivan leans over him, speaking quietly. “It’s trying to provoke you, draw you to it.” Lance’s brow wrinkles. 

“I thought Chimera were those things with the three heads? Snake for a tail?” Lance asks. Kolivan shakes his head. 

“Part hyperbolic nonsense from scribes, part trying to make up for the fact that no one has ever seen one and lived,” Kolivan stands, offers a hand and pulls Lance up beside him. He points Lance in the direction they were going and takes the lead. “It likes to lure travelers into looking at it before it drags them back to their den. I came down into the riverbed to try and get it to lose our trail but-” he’s cut off by a flurry of snapping branches on the bank behind him. It sounds like something is pulling up handfuls of reeds in a near silent fury. 

Lance goes cold. That’s close. Much closer than the woman’s call had been. Far too quick for any woman to travel through such a thick forest, at night no less. 

_ “Sirs? Please, help me. I’m hurt!”  _ it calls. Kolivan merely keeps moving, and this time, Lance follows him closely. 

“As long as you don’t see it, Chimera are completely harmless. It can’t force you to look, so it has to trick you. But it knows that, and it’s going to try and make you turn around using whatever it can think of. Just be patient and it’ll give up once you show it you won’t be easy prey,” Kolivan explains quietly. 

It’s then that Lance hears it drop down into the dry bed behind them, perhaps, to his untrained ears, twenty feet or so. It’s steps are heavy, uneven, as if it’s legs aren’t the same length, or it’s injured. Or feigning injury. Lance swallows, watching the broad plane of Kolivan’s back and telling himself to focus on not getting lost while he’s distracted. 

_ “Siiiiirsssss?”  _ the Chimera calls, its voice high and mewling. Less like a wounded person and more like an animal.  _ “My leg… Please, it’s hurt…”  _ He can see now how Kolivan had picked it out at distance. Its grasp on language is remarkable. Lance had never thought that anything besides a higher demon, those that tended to remain in their own realms and were behind only the worst disasters, could understand and use language rather than simply mimic it. The language here was good, but it didn’t quite seem like it could hide other things, like the fact that its footsteps sounded much heavier than an injured woman, or the slight, beastial nature in the sound of it’s whining. 

It follows them at a slight distance, shuffling, whimpering, and it occurs to Lance that perhaps it wasn’t the best at hiding these little details simply because it didn’t need to. He had nearly come running just from it calling from a distance. If Kolivan hadn’t warned him ahead of time he would have turned around and do himself in without it saying  _ anything. _

_ “HEY!”  _

Lance jerks a step forward, biting his lip to cut back the yelp of surprise. The Chimera closes the distance between them in a couple of fast, thudding steps, catching itself with a scatter of pebbles like it’s playing chicken or trying to keep itself from running into Lance’s back. Electricity runs up Lance’s spine. Goosebumps wave over his skin. A cold sweat breaks out on the back of his neck. 

What happened when a Chimera gave up its decoy? When it got frustrated with its prey? Lance stares hard at Kolivan’s back, focuses on where his fingers are fidgeting with something near his belt. He tries to wonder more about what Kolivan’s doing and not getting lost when it’s so dark than the cold breath that ghosts over the back of his neck. 

He gags. It smells of rotted flesh, of old fish left in the sun. It’s a high, sweet smell that seems to fill his sinuses and stick there. He thinks of the old bones of a deer kill a few days old, the shreds of flesh left behind to rot. He clenches his fists, wills his magic into his fingertips. The cold seems to cut through his mental miasma a little. 

The Chimera laughs.  _ “You gonna do something? Turn, I see you. See me too and stop acting like a bitch,”  _ it hisses. It’s directly behind Lance, its words puffing over his skin. Lance swears he even feels the cold, wet press, like a dog’s nose, graze his skin. He shudders. Keep looking at Kolivan. Keep following him.

_ “Do something. I dare you!”  _ the Chimera hisses. Lance’s heart skips, lurches up into his throat when the Chimera grabs him. Padded palm, long hooked claws digging in and ripping through his shirt sleeve like it isn’t there, sharp points ripping furrows into his upper arm. Lance hisses as pain blooms from the wounds. 

Suddenly, Kolivan slows his determined pace. He slips his belt from around his waist, ties it over his eyes.

“Close your eyes, Lance,” he growls lowly. Lance barely has time to register what he’s said and do so before he’s shoved to the ground. He hits the hard riverbed on his injured arm, groans in pain even as he squeezes his eyes tight and covers them with his hand for good measure. 

Above him there’s a harsh, electric whoosh of air. A deep, hollow thud. A long, load roar of pain that doesn’t sound like anything Lance has ever heard before. Like a big cat’s scream, with something human underneath. 

_ “Fuck you, Galra! You think you’re so much better than the rest of us-”  _ another swish of air, another solid blow. The Chimera retreats, making a sound not unlike an elk’s bugling, sharp, high. Ear-splitting so close and echoing through the trees. Lance shivers as he listens to the Chimera rush out of the riverbed and up through the reeds, twigs snapping around its retreat. 

Lance doesn’t move until Kolivan grabs him by the back of his shirt and pulls him to his feet. He’s breathing heavily. 

“It’s gone, but we need to go quickly unless it changes its mind,” Kolivan huffs. Lance has little trouble agreeing with him.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Lance got his first encounter with a demon up close and personal. Too bad he wasn't able to turn around and smack it around himself. But I wonder how well Kolivan thinks he handled it...


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe I remembered to post this on time on Christmas. I'm putting off clearing away leftover ham for this. Happy holidays everyone, and have a lovely 2018!

Lance is still shaky by the time light breaks a few hours later and Kolivan decides that they’ll make camp in the cool shade of a large tree. Lance drops his pack with a tired sigh. His shoulders throb where his pack has dug into them. His neck is stiff, aching because he couldn’t bring himself to look anywhere except straight ahead. What if the Chimera did decide to come back? What if he saw it creeping through the brush on accident? What if he got dragged away in the end anyways just because he wasn’t vigilant enough?

But the daylight eases his nerves greatly, and following Kolivan’s more relaxed movements, he thinks it’s safe to say the Chimera won’t be coming back anytime soon. He rolls his shoulders, hissing at the sting in his arm where the Chimera’s claws had cut into his skin. The fabric of his shirt sticks to the wound. It was ruined, but at least it had helped stop the flow of blood. He needs to tend to it, but that was for after he found water. With a tired breath Lance opens his pack and pulls out his favored digging stick and his cookpot. 

Before he can start for the riverbed however, Kolivan sets a hand on his shoulder to stop him. 

“I’ll take care of the water, Lance,” he says . He tips his head to the camp. “Gather kindling if you want, but we need to look at your arm.” Lance deflates a little. 

“Chimeras aren’t poisonous, are they?” he asks. Kolivan grunts, confused. 

“No? They don’t need to be when their gaze already causes total paralysis. You’ve bled a lot, and I don’t want it to get infected. We’re a long way from any kind of civilization, much less a doctor,” Kolivan says. With that, he takes both stick and cookpot from Lance and heads into the riverbed, sliding near silently through the reeds. Lance gathers kindle for the fire and has it starting to catch when Kolivan comes back with water. 

Kolivan tends to the fire a bit, then out of his bag he pulls a small bundle of tightly rolled bandages and a little containerl while the water boils. He motions to Lance and, after a confused pause. “Your shirt.” Lance grimaces as he unlaces his shirt and eases it off over his head. The wounds sting as the fabric pulls away from the dried blood, but Lance bites his lip and refuses to show how much it throbs. 

He can’t, however, bite back his slight irritation. “I thought you said Chimeras were harmless as long as I didn’t look at them. What gives? I didn’t look,” he says, motioning to his now dribbling wound. Kolivan merely shrugs. The water boils, but it needs a bit more time. 

“I don’t usually try to drive them off like that either, but that one was… different?” Kolivan’s words are tinged with question in a way that makes Lance a little nervous. “Usually they don’t even try to get that close. If you call their bluff on the first attempt, normally they simply give up. A curious one might even follow a little, but with me there? I was very surprised it did that, much less touched you,” Kolivan says, motioning to Lance’s arm. 

“Any guesses then?” Lance asks as Kolivan takes the cookpot off the fire to cool. Kolivan hums, pensive. 

“Either very young and ignorant, or extremely successful and aggressive because of it.” The barest smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. “I hope I knocked sense back into it.” Lance can’t help but laugh. At the time, the sound of Kolivan thumping the thing over the head so hard its skull rattled was terrifying. Now that the danger had passed, it was almost funny. 

“Were you just swinging then?” Lance asks. Kolivan rips off the edge of the bandage, dips it in the water and uses it to wipe away the blood caked on Lance’s skin. Lance wrinkles his nose against the pain, intent on not flinching or griping about how much it stings. 

“It yelling insults at me did a lot to help me hear where it was,” Kolivan says. He dabs the cloth around Lance’s wounds, his touch gentle and clearly well practiced. When it’s clean, Kolivan then picks up the small container he’d taken out of his bag. Opening it reveals that it’s some kind of ointment he smears gently over the cuts. Lance holds himself still, pondering over the Chimera’s words and considering if he should ask. Well, he better now, because who knew when he would find another opening. 

“It said something like ‘you think you’re so much better than the rest of us,’” Lance asks quietly. He half expects Kolivan to ignore him, or tell him to forget about that, but Kolivan only hums, unrolling more bandages to wrap firmly around his arm. 

“You know the Galra are- or used to be, humans? And that we’ve been changed by the Moon Goddess to better suit her purposes?” he asks. Lance nods. He knew that much, though he didn’t know why the Galra looked as they did or how the transformation took place. There were Galra who looked remarkably different from each other, but he’d never seen one mid transformation. But then again, he’d only seen a handful of Galra to begin with. 

“Well,” Kolivan continues, “Humans- Others, don’t generally see us as human anymore because we’ve been changed rather drastically. Demons see us as one of their own, but only grudgingly.” 

“Because you’re built to hunt them?” Lance asks. Kolivan hums in agreement. 

“That, and the Moon Goddess forms us after someone from long ago. Nobody is really sure if he was really a demon or not, but sometimes demons react like the Chimera did last night and it makes you think,” Kolivan says. He ties off the bandage, sighing. “I know it’s not the best explanation. More than a few things have gotten lost in time.” Lance shakes his head. 

“It’s interesting,” Lance says. “I’ve always thought so but there’s not exactly a lot of studying I can do.” 

“Besides following me when I’m trying to work?” Kolivan asks. Lance rolls his eyes. 

“I thought we were past that. You haven’t complained for like an entire day,” he huffs. 

“If you handle things like you did last night, maybe, but not quite yet,” Kolivan says. He stands, makes his way to the other side of the fire where he settles in against the trunk of the tree. He looks tired, like he’s thinking, so Lance gives him the few seconds it takes to mull over his next thought. What he says catches Lance by surprise. “You did a lot better than I would have expected though. Chimeras aren’t the most cut and dry to handle, and even those that aren’t so aggressive as the one from last night are a serious test of nerves.” 

Lance grins, pleased to his core hearing Kolivan praise him. Honestly, he felt he’d just been too terrified to think of doing anything other than exactly what Kolivan told him. “You’d thought I’d die,” he teases. Kolivan shrugs. 

“Yes, but you didn’t, so I guess I don’t need to hold your hand so much anymore,” he says. He closes his eyes, looks like he’s about to go to sleep, but Lance can’t help but sense that he’s ever so slightly pleased with himself. 

“Please tell me if we run into anything with another trick like that Chimera,” he asks softly. Kolivan shrugs, nearly imperceptible. 

“I’ll consider it.”

* * *

 

“Listen,” Kolivan says, voice hushed. He sets a hand on Lance’s chest, stopping him where he is. They’re not far into their next night of travel; probably only a couple of hours and the sunlight is still teasing around the western horizon, and Lance hasn’t got a chance to get tired yet. But, no matter how hard he strains his ears, he can’t pick up on whatever Kolivan is hearing. It makes him a bit nervous, watching Kolivan’s golden eyes narrow, his ears pricked forward at attention. 

Lance waits there for a moment, listening for all he’s worth but when nothing comes to him he gives up and breaks the silence. “What is it?”

“Water.” 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're rounding up on the end of the first 'section' I have planned for this. I had more to add but sinus troubles and benadryl got me pretty foggy headed.

At first Lance thinks the water is simply beyond polluted. It’s gathered in a decently sized pond, perhaps thirty feet across either way but... It must be massively deep because the Watchet river, smaller and faster here in this thick forest, pours into the pond at the far side in a short set of falls. That much, for as long as the river’s been dry? This whole place would be flooded, the soil here is soft and prone to erosion, it would have easily cut new channels back to the riverbed by now. 

But as he watches, the water pours into the black, sludgy pond, running over the surface for only a few feet before it seems to be absorbed. Lance starts down towards the pond’s edge, but remains several feet away. It looks… wrong, in a way he can’t quite place. The black water surges up, laps at the loamy pond’s edge, but it doesn’t totally retreat, instead some of it seems to cling to the dirt. Almost like it’s trying to claw its way out. Lance shivers. 

“What do you think?” Lance asks. He watches as Kolivan joins him near the water’s edge, walking along around the pond towards the falls. “All the water’s going into a sinkhole or something?” Lance toes at the soft ground thoughtfully. “Maybe there’s some caverns under here we didn’t know of… damn, digging all those wells are going to suck…”

“Is that what’s making the water so black as well, Lance?” Kolivan asks him. He looks at him calmly, even as he pulls his sword from his hip. Lance chooses to take that as a clue. But at the thought, he laughs lightly. 

“What, you think this is a demon? We’re going to exorcise a pond then?” 

“It won’t hurt to test. I’ve seen stranger,” Kolivan hums. He takes a step back, his fingertips glowing a soft purple. The glow creeps up along the edge of his blade, like it’s growing hot. Kolivan swings and his blade leaves a trail of light behind it as it arcs through the air. Lance’s mouth drops open when the arc continues on for several feet beyond the point of Kolivan’s sword, swinging down and striking a deep scar into the surface of the pond. 

Lance shudders as the pond  _ recoils.  _ It gurgles deeply, the wound Kolivan left on the  _ water  _ persisting, deep, dark red blood welling up in beats and flooding over the surface. Kolivan hums like he’s more vindicated than surprised. Lance scurries back up away from the edge of the pond, his hand flinches to his knife, realizes he has no idea how he’d fight a body of water with it, and goes for his bow instead. The pond twitches, one portion of it near Kolivan twisting, twisting around itself. It starts to lift into something like a malformed, lumpy tentacle. Bulbs form on the side, the surface splitting to reveal round, red eyes. Lance’s stomach turns and acts on instinct. He pulls an arrow from his quiver, nocks it, and lets fly. 

It strikes its mark, sinking into one of the bigger eyes. It pops, and thick, pus colored jelly runs down over the surface. It flinches back. Bubbles in pain. For a second Lance thinks he’s intimidated it. 

But then it strikes out and sweeps Kolivan off his feet. Lance yelps, retreats more, already pulling out another arrow and aiming for where the demon is reaching for Kolivan’s leg while he’s getting back on his feet. But this time when Lance hits it, it doesn’t react. The arrow merely sinks into the slime and it wraps tight around Kolivan’s ankle and tugs him again onto his back. 

Lance breaks out in a cold sweat. Kolivan grunts, takes his own swings. Chunks come off, sometimes bleeding, sometimes seeming like it has no effect at all. Either way it’s clearly far too strong for Kolivan to pull away on his own. 

Lance strikes another eye instead, testing how long it distracts the thing. Not terribly long, but enough for him to take a breath and  _ look.  _ Kolivan’s sunk into the slime up to the knee, calling his name even as he swings into the mass pulling at his legs. It looks about like trying to cut into sucking mud. It’s too…  _ wet  _ to really damage it. 

“Oh  _ shit, _ ” Lance breathes, an idea lighting in him like a spark. He might have something to do about that. He takes another slow, deep breath. An icy chill crawls up his fingers as he channels his magic into them. He readies another arrow, but instead of letting it go immediately, he gives it a second for his magic to crawl up the shaft and cover the arrowhead completely. He aims for the space between Kolivan’s ankles, hoping he doesn’t hurt him in the process. 

The arrow sinks in deep. At first, it looks like there’s no effect, but slowly, gray patches of frost creep up to the surface of the slime. Not complete, but it effect spreads farther than Lance expected, maybe a three or four foot circle. Kolivan grunts, brings his gleaming sword down on the surface. A muffled, cracking boom and much of the slime around Kolivan’s legs shatters into large, near solid chunks. 

“Good!” Kolivan calls. He rolls to his feet, leaps over the demon’s next attempt to grab him, and retreats back to where Lance is waiting. He’s breathing hard, spent from the effort of trying to free himself. “Very good.” 

Lance swallows as the pond gathers itself. Several more tentacles twist their way up, thicker than his leg. Bulbous eyes the size of grapefruits appear across the surface, each rolling independently in search of them. Lance wipes away his nervous sweat with his sleeve. He almost doesn’t want to look at it, almost wants to turn away and not deal with this...this  _ thing _ . It’s horrific in a way Lance could never have imagined but… he had wanted to do this. He wanted to take an active part in restoring water to his city and if dealing with this thing was what it took to do so then. 

He would just have to do it. 

“You have any ideas?” Lance asks, nocking another arrow and infusing it with his magic ahead of time. At the edge of the pond some twenty or thirty feet away the demon starts trying to claw it’s way out of the depression made by the pond. It slams its tentacles into the soft earth, cutting deep furrows into the soil with damp thuds. They both back up slowly, wary of letting it get too close again, but fortunately it’s so awkward they don’t have to move fast. “It seems like hitting the eyes is the only thing that really seems to hurt it, but it’s probably got a hundred of those. There’s too much of it to chip it to pieces either.” 

“Most amorphous demons have a core. Something that drives them, or something they form around. Usually they… glow? But I can’t see the one here. It’s too dark. But your magic. That’s a good idea. Between the two of us I’m sure we can find it. It just might take a bit of work,” Kolivan says. He gives his sword a little test swing, checks that the edge is still sharp. 

“Just aim for the middle and freeze as much as you can. I’ll take care of it from there,” Kolivan says. He starts back down to towards the demon and Lance can’t help but feel like this might not be the best plan.


	9. Chapter 9

He hits the monster first near the center, at the base where that first tentacle had risen. It gurgles deeply, tries to twist away only for it to slow and freeze where it is. The eyes closest to the frozen piece blink slowly, as if it’s dazed or lethargic, but the rest seems to move independently, like it’s not affected at all.  

Kolivan creeps closer to the demon. It quickly seems to forget entirely about Lance and focus on Kolivan instead. Two more tentacles abandon their futile task of pulling the whole mass out of the pond’s depression. They both swing back. Readying to crush Kolivan entirely.

Lance channels a little more of his magic and lets the next arrow fly. It sinks in halfway up the right tentacle. It freezes quicker this time with the extra effort Lance had put into his shot. Frozen stiff in the middle of its swing, the tentacle snaps itself in half. It gives Kolivan room to step back and cut into the left one still coming for him, slicing it cleanly in two. 

Reddish black blood pours from the sliced tentacle, spraying up along the bank as it flinches back. Lance wrinkles his nose at the sight but fires his next arrow quick as he can, hitting the edge of the demon where it meets the bank. When it freezes over, Kolivan tests it to take his weight and steps on. The demon writhes. The frozen patches hinder the demons ability to move. It’s simply too viscous and twisting itself to create more tentacles strains the frozen patches and cracks them. It’s already starting to pull itself apart. 

Lance hits it two more times, creating something like stepping stones for Kolivan to make his way to the center tentacle. Unimpeded, it shouldn’t have been a difficult task, but the demon is learning. It makes more tentacles, but smaller, and Kolivan has to take his time to cut them back and keep them from pulling him in again. Lance strikes it several more times to keep it at bay and slow it down. 

Kolivan makes his way to the base of the center tentacle. The frozen patch at the base hinders its range of motion. All eyes turn on Kolivan, bulging in its anger. It takes a swing, arcing down faster than Lance can react.

Kolivan throws himself onto his back and Lance can even hear his grunt of pain when he hits the frozen surface beneath him. He swings with no magic infused into his blade; he doesn’t have time for it. But he gets in a good cut all the same. Enough that the demon makes this deep, angry groan and the end of the tentacle rips off with the momentum, spraying dark blood as it goes flying through the trees six feet to Lance’s side. 

Lance watches, his last arrow waiting in his bow as Kolivan rolls back onto his feet. He grips the handle of his sword and purple light races up along the edge. Kolivan swings down, hard, shattering the frozen slime at the base of the tentacle. He kicks away some of the bigger pieces, cuts again and again in a rushed fervor. He shoves the tip of his sword under a large, stubbornly caught piece, levers it out even as the demon fights to wrap whatever it can around his leg. 

The piece comes out and Lance’s heart skips a beat. Bright purple light spills out of the crater. The core. Lance pulls his arrow back and takes aim. 

“Kolivan! I’ve got it!,” he calls. He sees Kolivan nod, instead of hitting the core himself he goes to cut away what’s gripping his leg. 

But the demon tugs hard and Kolivan is pulled off his little platform entirely and waist deep in the muck. He puts out his sword hand to catch himself and the demon wastes no time in sucking it in. It wants to neutralize him. Lance, his arm already aching from holding his arrow ready, has a choice to make with his last shot. 

Either freeze the spot Kolivan is in and let him chip his way out, giving the demon who knew how much time to recover, but also Lance enough time to make it down to the edge of the pond and collect one of his spent arrows. Or he can hit the core and deal with however it reacts. It might not kill it. It might just go dead. It might even explode, right? It’s the engine running this thing. 

“Core, Lance! I’m fine!” Kolivan calls, even as the slime creeps up his chest. “Do it!” Lance empties his chest, takes aim, and shoots into the center of that glow. He hears a crack, like a branch giving way in an ice storm. The glow dims, pulses-

Lance is knocked flat on his back by the booming rush that follows. 

It’s already over by the time Lance can think to breathe but he’s left light headed. He blinks up through the trees overhead, waiting for his eyesight to come back into focus. He groans and rolls onto his side. He ears ring fiercely. He reaches up to check. No blood, no sharp pain. He didn’t burst his eardrums with that…

_ Kolivan _ . Lance gasps and gets to his feet. That had knocked him on his back from maybe forty feet away. Kolivan was right next to it. 

He’s halfway to the edge of the pond before he realizes what he’s actually looking at. A pond. An actual clear pond. Lance can’t help but laugh despite his worry as he steps down to the water’s edge, looks in and sees his own reflection overlaid over the soft and pebbled bed. No sign of the demon at all. He looks out over the water just in time to see Kolivan break the surface. 

“You okay?” Lance calls. Kolivan nods and swims to the shore. Once out, he shakes some of the water off his ears and holds something out to Lance. A deep, dark blue stone. Lance turns it over in his hands, admiring. He can barely see his fingers through it and as he turns it back and forth, there’s a slight metallic sheen to it. Down one side of the rough stone is a deep chip about the size of an arrowhead. 

“The core?” he asks. Kolivan shrugs off his waterlogged robe and spreads it out on the bank. He sits beside it and Lance joins him. They both watch as the water starts to run over the lower lip of the pond and into the dry riverbed. It would still take days to reach Watchet, but relief swells in Lance seeing it moving again. 

“That’s for you to give to Coran,” Kolivan says. “Proof that you killed it.” Lance turns the stone over and over in his hands and tries desperately not to grin. His first demon kill. It almost didn’t seem real. 

“I thought it would be a lot harder than it was,” Lance hums. Kolivan glances at him, incredulous. 

“The fact that it was an amorph so overfed on water it couldn’t move under its own weight probably helps,” he says. Lance gives him an apologetic look. 

“Yeah. Sorry, I wasn’t exactly in the thick of things either,” he admits. 

“That’s fine though,” Kolivan says. “You still earned it. Most people would have seen something like that and run or fainted. But you held your own. I wouldn’t have been able to do anything without you freezing it. So, thank you. I clearly misjudged you.” This time, Lance can’t bite back his smile. 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ; _ ; I'm really sorry I didn't have a chapter up last week. I had some personal reasons that were keeping me from writing, but I'm back on track now, and I bring you a slightly longer chapter than normal to make up for it. Okay, I'll be honest, the word count got away from me on this one and I couldn't find a good place to break it up so thanks for waiting on me to get back on schedule.

“And the heroes have returned!” Coran cheers the instant he sees them from his place among a small group of guards at the gates to Watchet. He stands quickly from his seat on an overturned bucket, waving his arm as if Lance couldn’t already see him with all too much clarity. 

“Oh, blessed Blaytz…” Lance mutters under his breath. He can tell even from two hundred feet what’s apparently been going on ever since they had killed the demon stopping up the river. Kolivan glances at him, a curious sound on his lips. “I think the temple might have broken into the nunvill as soon as they saw the water was back,” Lance says softly, leaning in as if there were any way for the roucous group at the gate to overhear them. 

“Ah,” Kolivan hums, his ears pulling back slightly when two of guards start an impromptu wrestling match in their excitement and the others all start cheering and picking sides. “I hope there’s some left. I wouldn’t mind a drink myself if I were being honest.” Lance looks at him like his trust has been dealt a mortal blow.

“We can’t be friends anymore,” Lance whispers. Kolivan doesn’t respond and Lance wonders why he even bothers making a joke when Kolivan is simply a bore.

“I didn’t realize we were friends,” Kolivan says. Lance glances at him and nearly misses the tiny smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. Lance chuckles.

“Watchet was supposedly founded by pirates. You know how it is. You face danger with one of us and you’re suddenly part of the family. Good luck getting rid of me,” Lance says. He half expects Kolivan to tell him that’s only a legend or, even more likely, just ignore him. But Kolivan shakes his head. 

“Many of the other hunters say things like that too. You’d probably get along with them a little too well,” Kolivan says. Lance’s heart flutters. That’s… that’s good right? He’s admired the Galra hunters ever since he was a kid and for their  _ leader _ , of all people to tell him he’d fit right in…

Lance clears his throat. Tells himself to be cool and not show just how excited he is. “So does that mean-” 

“Lance!” Coran cuts him off with a wild wave of his arms and, now that they’re too close to ignore him, Lance grows quiet. Later on then, Lance thinks to himself. They close in on the gate and Coran throws his arm around Lance’s shoulders, hugging him tight against his side with a little sob. “My boy! I worried about you every minute after I found you had left.” Lance smiles tightly, turning away a little from the smell of nunvill on Coran’s breath. “But when the water came back somehow I knew,  _ I knew _ that you had made it through alright.” He squeezes Lance tight around the neck and Lance wheezes, almost instantly feeling light headed when Coran digs his forearm into his throat. Lance gives a weak and breezy laugh.

“I sure did…” he huffs. He gently pries Coran off of him, only for Coran to press the flask of nunvill into his hands. 

“Drink! The whole temple has a welcoming party ready for you two!” Coran calls. Lance smiles politely, mimics tipping the flash of foul smelling liquor to his lips and then turns to give it to Kolivan. 

Only to find he’s already slipped through the gates with a couple of the guards, stoically suffering their slaps on the back and hollered congratulations. Lance sighs tiredly and, at Coran’s insistent stare, he finally gives in and takes a sip of nunvill. He forces himself to swallow and only mostly hides his grimace at the warm, slightly savory flavor. 

“Alright-” he chokes quietly, taking Coran’s arm and leading him towards the gates. “Let’s go see the party.”

* * *

 

The temple’s doors are opened wide and both the courtyard and main hall are crowded with townspeople. It seems like everyone’s celebrating. Groups of people gather around campfires, sharing huge cauldrons of soup, spit roasted meats, large pots of tea and coffee steeped in clean water until they’re dark and rich. More people young and old linger around the river now that it’s wide and overflowing with fresh water. It seems like every tree has a rope swing tied to it, every patch of flat bank crowded with happy sunbathers. It looks like the summer solstice festival has arrived in the middle of spring. 

Lance looks around with awe as he walks with Coran up the steps and into the main hall. An unfamiliar sense of pride wells up in his chest. He had helped with this. Sure, he had snuck out and followed Kolivan despite his original order to stay behind but… that didn’t matter now that everything had worked out for the better, right? Even Kolivan himself had told him he had done a good job, that he’d fit in with the other hunters. Lance grins, handing off the nunvill to the first person he sees and allowing himself to be greeted by the enthusiastic crowd. 

It feels like he retells every little detail of the past week three hundred times over the rest of the afternoon and well into the evening. Every new person he sees wants to hear the  _ whole  _ story, Lance, don’t shorten it for us! They give him knowing looks when he admits he snuck out of town. Shiver in fear when he recounts the Chimera (and shows off his bandaged arm). Their eyes grow wide when they hear a demon made of thick, black slime was the purpose for the river drying up. 

He doesn’t see Kolivan again until well after sunset when he finally pulls himself away from the crowd and makes his way down a quiet hallway in the back of the temple towards his room. He’s still buzzing and loose, even though he’s only accepted a third of the drinks offered to him, and exhaustion seeps into his bones and weighs him down. In this dark hallway Lance is seriously wondering if he’ll even make it to his bed before he falls asleep.

“Lance,” a deep, familiar voice calls from one of the guests rooms. Lance nearly shrugs it off as a symptom of exhaustion, but then he hears a softer voice mutter something, Kolivan’s voice rumbling back insistently, and Lance decides he hadn’t actually imagined the call. With a tired groan, Lance turns and pokes his head in through the open door. 

Kolivan sits at the low table in the guest room, fingers laced around a cup of tea. Across from him is another, slightly smaller Galra with a neat beard and silver stripes lining his ears. The stranger nods politely as Lance takes a seat next to Kolivan. The Galra starts making a third cup of tea while Kolivan gives him a sharp look out of the corner of his eye. 

“If I had known you were drunk I would have let you sleep…” he sighs. Lance waves him off, thanking the stranger softly when he’s offered a cup. He takes a sip and grimaces. Strong and without even a pinch of sugar. 

“I’m fine. I’m getting over it,” Lance says after another swallow of the strong tea. He wonders if it’s simply how Galra drink their tea or if they’re trying to sober him up. He clears his throat, remembering his manners and offering his hand to the newcomer. “Lance.”

The Galra doesn’t shake his hand, but rather grips his arm just beneath the elbow, squeezing hard enough to press his claws in a little. Lance fumbles slightly before returning the gesture. “Thace,” the Galra says. “I’m sure you can guess where I’m from by now.” 

“Uh, yeah,” Lance says. “Is something wrong?” He blinks against the bitterness and heat of the tea. Kolivan slides a piece of paper over the table to Lance. Squinting, Lance makes out the tight chicken scratch as a letter pleading for help. For… missing persons? And… Lance picks up the paper and reads the last several sentences over again. 

“Holy shit, really? I knew the people in Reseda were proud of their gardens but to lose access to the Forest Temple because it’s so overgrown?” Lance asks. Kolivan heaves a tired sigh. Thace smiles politely. 

“I was just telling Kolivan,” here Thace pauses, glancing to Kolivan as if he needs permission to go further. Kolivan gives him a tight nod. “I was explaining how quickly things have declined since he left the Moon Temple to come help Watchet. It seems like many other places have been seeing a drastic increase in demonic activity, natural disasters, strange occurances. All over the place, and at the same time. Our temple was practically flooded with requests for help the day after you left, leader. We’re so swamped that there are only a couple of novices left at the Moon Temple to guard it while the rest are working. I decided it would be best for me to leave myself for my own task and try to catch you here when you returned here rather than waste even the few days it would take you to travel to the Moon Temple on your own.” 

“So, this is your next assignment?” Lance asks Kolivan, waving the letter. Kolivan’s ear twitches. 

“Ours. You’re coming with me,” Kolivan says. Lance shifts his gaze between the two of them, Thace looking more confused over Lance’s reaction than Kolivan’s announcement. 

“You haven’t noticed yet?” Kolivan asks. Lance’s brow furrows, his confusion growing to a subdued worry when Kolivan glances at him, lifts his hand and nudges the shell of his ear. He grimaces, edging away, and the only thing soothing his concern is the Galras’ bemused expressions. 

“It’s fine,” Thace hums. “I suppose you’re just one of those whose changes come slowly. And of all things, the ears  _ are  _ one of the more difficult to pick up on.” Lance glances between them, half convinced he’s actually fallen asleep at some point and this is some wild drunken dream. He reaches up, in his rush bumping Kolivan’s hand aside to feel along his ear. At first he doesn’t feel anything out of the ordinary. But then, right along the top ridge of his ear, he feels something a little off. Like the cartilage is too stiff, a little too warm and… pointed. 

“What the hell?” Lance asks softly. Kolivan merely shrugs and drinks his own tea, completely nonplussed both by the strange changes and Lance’s surprise. 

“It’s still early enough to change your mind,” Thace says. “It’s only your ears. If you decide to continue on your own way instead of joining us hunters, the Moon Goddess will eventually recognize that and return them to normal.” It all snaps together in Lance’s mind so sharply it nearly sobers him completely. The Galra used to be humans just like him, changing was a show of the Moon Goddess’s favor, they were built to hunt demons…

“She noticed me?” Lance asks, his voice high and squeaky with his surprise. Kolivan hums and nods lightly. “Holy  _ shit  _ really? I mean- I didn’t-” he stammers. 

“She must like you,” Kolivan says. “I’m not terribly surprised, seeing how our trip went. You’re…” Lance watches his brow furrow as he thinks. He gives up it and changes the subject. “Well, I’m heading out again as soon as I get some sleep. You’re free to come with me if you’d like, but you should think on it first. You can still change your mind now, but it won’t be that way much longer if you keep helping me,” he says. Lance sighs, staring into his tea and slowly turning his head back and forth, trying to see his ears in his reflection. He can’t, so he downs the rest of his cup in a couple swallows. 

“Alright, I’ll meet you out front tomorrow evening?” he says, pushing up from the table. Kolivan growls softly and shoots him a mild glare. 

“I just told you to think about it,” he grumbles. Lance shrugs. 

“I did. Thace just said you’re short on hands, so if the Moon Goddess has deigned me worthy of her favor, I’d just be a bad man if I turned her down, wouldn’t I?” 

Kolivan answers that by pointedly ignoring him. 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is a bit late this week. I've had some irl obligations and mild writer's block that set me back and I'm still trying to play catch up on getting this thing prewritten. Thanks for reading this!

This time, setting out from the Watchet gates isn’t sweet talking the guards and slipping them a few coins to look the other way because ‘I just need a few minutes I swear’. It’s keeping pace with Kolivan and using the last of the fading sunlight to read through the letter one last time. 

“When do you think this happened?” Lance asks. Kolivan hums and instead of heading straight into the forest like last time, he cuts east down a wider road, towards Reseda. 

“Probably started around the same time your water disappeared,” he says after a long pause. Lance frowns. Thinking back to their conversation with Thace, it had seemed he was saying much the same thing. The Moon Temple was getting swamped with requests for help. 

“How come?” Lance asks. He folds up the letter and tucks it safely into his bag. Looking out across the fields, watching farmers tend to the tiny, bright green shoots already pushing their way from the earth now that the river’s started flowing again, it’s hard to imagine that there’s much of anything wrong in the world. But at the same time, that demon in the pond… it hadn’t been natural. The stone that served as the core of that monster is still in his bag, a reminder both of the start this path to becoming a hunter and how dangerous things out here can be. 

“There’s no way to be sure. Sometimes there are waves of demonic activity, but even then it will be isolated to a single area. But we’ve been getting letters and visitors from everywhere,” Kolivan says. The quiet that follows is tense, Kolivan’s ears pulled back a little, his shoulders stiff as he walks. Lance glances at him and thinks he’s… worried?

“It’s never been like this before?” Lance asks. The Lovat river drying up as it had had been a historical event. Even after a decade of drought it would run low, but never  _ dry  _ and never so fast and knowing now what had caused it..

“You think Reseda is having demon troubles too?” Lance asks. Kolivan nods stiffly. 

“I know so.”

* * *

 

“Do you see that?” Kolivan asks. They’re both kneeling in a deep rain-cut ditch beside the road, peeking over into a grassy moonlit field. Tonight their travels had been cut short by a merchant’s cart pulled over on the side of the road a mile behind him. He’d been equal parts scared and furious: his ox spooked, his goods strewn about the surrounding fields in every direction. It takes a lot of asking and ten minutes helping the man put himself somewhat back together before they’re able to get the story out of him. 

A pack of wolves had attacked him that evening when he’d stopped to camp for the night. Lance had been mostly disinterested beyond helping the merchant gather his things but Kolivan pressed for details. Where did they come from? Is anything missing? Did any one animal in particular stand out to you? Lance had no idea of the significance of any of it, but he remained quiet. Partly to try and learn and partly to act like he already knew exactly what he was doing. 

Which leads him here, trying to put together Kolivan’s muttered thinking and the sight of a pack of wolves milling around in a field as if they have no further cares in the world than the scraps of the furs stolen off the merchant. 

“Well,” Lance says after a long moment trying to pick out what Kolivan could be talking about in particular. “There’s that guy’s stuff… Maybe they smelled it out or something?” Kolivan turns to him, stares quietly until Lance’s skin tingles. 

“You don’t think one of them looks different?” Kolivan asks flatly. Lance shrugs, watches the pack. One dozing, two fighting over a scrap of fur, a few others trailing after one large, silvery white wolf like a court following royalty. 

“The white one? He seems like the leader, or something-” Lance cuts himself off, pinning Kolivan with a similarly unenthused look. “Okay, I don’t know what’s so important here. Guy back there just lost some of his stuff because he didn’t pack it up tight enough.” 

The furrow in Kolivan’s brow betrays his disappointment. “You told me you were an experienced hunter before you joined the temple. You don’t think that wolf - and it’s not a wolf, it’s a warg - is uncommonly large? What about the notched marks in its ears? It’s white. Even at night you should have noticed the discolorations in its fur around the neck and chest.”

Lance shifts, turning away from Kolivan’s disapproving stare and back towards the pack of wolves. Most seem like they haven’t noticed the two, but the one Kolivan had pointed out as a warg is definitely on to them. It keeps glancing towards the ditch they’re crouched in as if unsure of their purpose. Lance tries to send it good vibes, squinting at the warg’s fur about its neck. No matter what Kolivan says, it’s hard for him to tell, but maybe, just maybe the discoloration is really there. Darker, grayish marks that may just be dirty fur, but which take the shape of broad, even lines that wrap around the neck and chest, leading to a spot on the back that seems somewhat flatter than the rest. 

“It looks like it’s been wearing a saddle…” Lance muses to himself. 

“Because it has. Forest spirits often use them as mounts or pack animals. Both are common around Reseda, as far as spirits go,” Kolivan explains. Kolivan turns, creeping around behind Lance and past him, back towards the merchant and his cart. Lance throws one last glance towards the pack of wolves slowly making their way across the field toward the forest on the far side. He follows Kolivan.

“So what are we going to do? The guy asked us to track them down.” Kolivan glances over the edge of the ditch, sees the pack is no longer lingering, and stands. Lance follows closely. 

“We did track them down. But we’re going to go back, tell him there was nothing to be done, and ask him if he wants us to guard him for the rest of the night,” Kolivan says. Surprised, Lance laughs. 

“That’s lazy of you,” he teases. 

“If you want to walk the rest of the night, then you’re more than welcome to. We’re going to the same place after all. Just because I  _ can  _ walk all night doesn’t mean I always want to if I don’t have to. Sometimes I’d rather hope a merchant will give us a little money for guarding his goods, or at least let me sleep in his cart when he sets off in the morning,” Kolivan says. The small smile on his lips falls and the look he pins on Lance as he catches up and settles into pace at his side. “More importantly, I want you to understand that I’m not going after that warg because I’m lazy. It’s because there’s a difference between spirits and true demons. Spirits are just a fact of life and they have their own place in the world. Tell me, what did that pack take out of the merchant’s cart?”

“Uh…” Lance muses, thinking back to the goods thrown about the cart and the scraps the wolves had taken with them to the field. “Just some furs, right? Some of the other stuff was a mess, but not a lot was damaged beyond repair.” 

“Exactly. Those furs must have come from a place that angered the forest spirits that warg belongs to. Perhaps overhunting or inhumane traps. They’re just giving a warning, really. Trying to keep the balance of this forest in check.” 

“You think the merchant’s a bad person then?” Lance asks. But what Kolivan’s saying makes sense. They were  _ demon  _ hunters, and if there’s no real harm being done then there’s no point in taking out a couple of wolves who were just trying to preserve their home. 

“No, but when he’s selling his goods and thinks about how much trouble a pack of wolves gave him over a couple of furs, he’ll probably avoid buying anymore from hunters the next time he stocks up.” 

“Smart,” Lance hums. Down the road, he see the vague shape of the merchant’s cart at the side of the road, a small circle of light made by a single lantern competing with moonlight for miles around.

Lance is just thinking of how he’s going to smooth talk his way onto the back of that cart when a cold, tingling sensation pokes him between the shoulders. Like something’s watching him. He’s glancing over his shoulder, thinking back on his run in with the Chimera and cursing himself all in the same moment. But he doesn’t freeze, and he’s not hurt, but his heart still pounds in his throat as he looks around for the source of that lingering shiver on the back of his neck. 

There. Just in the treeline directly to his side. A dark shape in the shadows. Two bright golden pinpoints. Eyes. Lance stares, long enough for the shape to blink, but Lance has to be the first to turn away. 

“Hey Kolivan?” he starts, trotting to catch up with the other hunter. “I think one of the wolves followed us back.” Kolivan glances in the direction Lance points, his eyes narrowing as he looks around. 

“I don’t see it, but I wouldn’t be surprised. Probably making sure we move along and don’t make anymore trouble. Come on,” Kolivan says slowing as they draw near enough to the cart for the merchant to wave and call out to them. “It’s harmless.” 


	12. Chapter 12

“I’m going out,” Kolivan says. Lance pauses where he’s kneeling in the floor setting up his bedroll. He looks up at Kolivan, down at his things and wonders if he should even bother trying to finish this or hope to get any sleep at all. 

“We got here ten minutes ago Kolivan, what are you doing?” he asks. Kolivan hasn’t even taken off his boots, but he’s already pulling the door open and stepping out onto the back porch. Lance finds himself thankful that the room they’ve rented opens up onto the back of the house because if either of the older couple saw that Kolivan was leaving again they would no doubt give them all sorts of grief. They had already fussed when they had caught the two of them walking into Reseda not long after sunrise. 

“I want to look around town and see if I can get some supplies before we meet with Pidge and get all the details of what’s going on at the temple,” Kolivan says. But then he pauses, looking down at Lance and then out to the town that, as the sun rises, doesn’t look as bright as Lance would expect simply from how thick the tree canopy had grown above the buildings. “You don’t have to come if you would rather sleep.” 

“I  _ would _ rather sleep but you saying it like that makes me wonder if I should take you up on that offer,” Lance sighs. After a few days of traveling he’d kind of been looking forward to having a few hours of sleep before they started work on the Forest Temple. Kolivan answers him by stepping out onto the back porch and shutting the door most of the way behind him. 

“I don’t see much help you’re going to be trying to catch a farmer that will sell me a day’s worth of food before he goes out to his fields. Sleep. I’ll be back before long.” With that, Lance is left alone in the room listening to the breeze flowing through the trees outside. 

“Alright then. I guess I’ll set your bed up for when you decide to come back and actually sleep,” Lance mutters to himself.

* * *

 

He’s not sure how much time has passed. It seemed like he was just on the cusp of sleep by the time he was laying down. And as he lays on his side, watching the dark shape of a wolf moving in the half open door leading outside, he wonders if he’s awake or asleep. He could be dreaming because it wasn’t the first time he’d ever dreamed of dogs or wolves and, he thinks rather clearly, it would make sense for his subconscious brain to be thinking of them right now, when he’d only seen an entire pack of them a couple days before.

But at the same time the wolf looks so real as it nudges the door further open and looks around the room that it sends a chill down Lance’s spine. Is he awake? He must be, because the wolf’s nail click so sharply on the wooden floor. He hears the wolf’s snuffling as it takes in the scents in the room, its ears pressed forward and listening. 

As it draws nearer Lance’s confusion stars bleeding into fear. Not only the fact that a wolf has apparently wandered into town and into his room without anybody noticing it. But he recognizes this wolf. The dark shape and the bright gold eyes give it away as the wolf he’d thought he’d seen following them back to the merchant’s cart. 

That’s enough to pull him out of his drowsy state. Lance shifts. The wolf’s eyes flicker to him and Lance wonders just how effective his thin blanket will be at protecting him from a bite. 

Slowly, Lance pushes up on one arm. But instead of pulling its ears back or baring its teeth or doing anything, really, to show aggression, it starts to wag its tail.

“Uh, hey, boy…” Lance says. He eases up, moving the blanket off himself so he won’t get tangled up in it if he has to suddenly flee. However, the wolf seems to take his greeting as an invitation and happily closes the distance between them. Lance lifts one hand thinking to protect himself with it but the wolf has other ideas, shoving its head into his palm. 

Lance had no idea wild wolves were so soft. All worry Lance had of dealing with an aggressive animal seems to almost melt away as he scratches the wolf between its ears. Its fur is silky soft, thick to the point of luxuriousness. 

“Oh hey, you just wanted someone to pet you?” Lance hums, digging his fingers into the wolf’s fur, rubbing its ear between his fingers. The wolf huffs as if agreeing with him, scoots closer and sits close enough to his side that he can feel the warmth emanating off the animal. It’s comforting. Just sitting here, petting something that so clearly loves the attention, he could spend all morning doing this. In fact, that sounds exactly like what he wants to do. He’s still completely beat from traveling. He’d probably sleep great with this dog (wolf, something in the back of his mind supplies) curled up next to him. 

Lance yawns, and when his hand slows on the dog’s neck for a beat, it noses his hand and prods him to keep going. “Alright, buddy. I’m not going anywhere i’m just-” Lance cuts himself off with another yawn. “I think you just woke me up at bad time or something. I’m even more tired than before.” 

Lance sits there for a long while. Long enough that he loses sense of time and forgets all about his intention to catch up on sleep. But it doesn’t matter. He’s got this wolf with him and it’s so  _ nice _ , simply petting it, listening to his own heartbeat and the breeze outside and the wolf’s soft breathing.  

The wolf tenses under his hand, its eyes wide and pinned on the door. Lance drags his own head to look, but he’s so tired it takes a conscious effort. Kolivan stands in the door. His ears are pinned back tight and claws are digging into his bag so hard that Lance is sure he’ll rip even the hardy fabric. Distantly, Lance wonders when Kolivan got here and why he looks so tense. 

“ _ Go.  _ Wherever you came from, go back there. You’re not welcome here,” Kolivan growls at the wolf. Lance sits there, with his fingers tangled in the wolf’s fur and it doesn’t occur to him that he’s hindering the situation until the wolf is licking the inside of his arm to make him let go. The wolf crosses the room and slips past Kolivan and out the door with the kind of attitude that makes him think of a scolded child. 

Kolivan glances outside after the wolf and, when he’s apparently content that it’s really gone he shuts the door behind him with a soft wooden snap. He sets his bag down. Lance lays back down and almost instantly starts dozing again.

* * *

 

“How do you feel?” Kolivan asks. Before Lance can even sit up fully and pull himself out of bed Kolivan is offering him a plate of food. Lance tries to guess the time from the light coming in through the window, but the trees overgrowing Reseda make it a bit harder than it really needs to be. As far as he can guess it’s late morning. Which means he’s overslept. 

“I feel fine but-” Lance takes the food from Kolivan, starting to peel an orange. “What’s with the food and letting me sleep in? I said I was tired but I would have been fine.” Kolivan answers by kneeling by his bedroll and taking up the foot of Lance’s blanket. He shows it. It’s covered in black fur. 

“You remember this?” he asks. Lance pauses mid chew and suddenly that dream he’d thought he’d had seems a little too real. 

“Uh, yeah, I do I guess. It was a black wolf and I was petting it and-” Lance sets down his orange. He just stares at the blanket in confusion. “Why in the hell did I not think that was weird?” He asks, more to himself than anything. 

“Because that wasn’t a wolf that snuck in here. It was a hellhound as far as I could tell. A demon that feeds of attention and a person’s touch. They use a mild form of mind control to relax their victim and make them feel compelled to well, to pet them. Usually they go after children or the elderly- perhaps why it showed up in this house in the first place. It must have been used to being shooed away because it left without much fuss. So, I suppose it’s fine. As long as you think you’re okay I’m not going to worry about it right now.” Kolivan sighs, stands, and goes back to packing their things like he had apparently been doing before Lance woke up. 

“We’re late to meet Pidge, aren’t we?” Lance sighs to himself. 

“Very. Pack your things. She wasn’t happy when I turned her away an hour ago and I doubt the waiting has done much to help that.”


	13. Chapter 13

With the Forest temple inaccessibly overgrown, the Holts had converted their home into a temporary temple. From what Lance picked up they were one of the oldest families in the town and over time their property had grown to a respectable size, with room to accommodate a worship room and a handful of monks and visitors. As they follow Colleen Holt around the back of the house and through the garden, Lance gets the feeling that the only reason it’s even still recognizable as a distinct space are the monks armed with machetes and pruning knives working along the wall and the newly hewn statues of Trigel, the Forest temple’s deity. 

“I’m sorry to just leave you here like this,” Colleen says, her fingers curled on the door. “It’s just been so busy around here since we lost the Temple, since Sam and Matt went missing…” Kolivan only nods, but Lance can’t help himself. He steps in, sets a reassuring hand on her arm. 

“Please, don’t worry about it. That’s why we're here, right? I promise we’ll do everything we can to figure out what’s going on and set things right. This seems like an unprecedented event and we’re all just trying to do anything we can,” he says. Colleen gives a weak smile, but it’s impossible for her to hide how exhausted she is. She glances to the door, carefully shuts it all the way again. 

“Then, please, if you can, will you try to convince Katie not to go with you when you investigate the temple? She’s not a hunter like you two and I don’t think I can deal with her going missing too…” she sighs. Lance nods. 

“Even if we have to sneak out in the middle of the night,” Lance whispers in case they can be heard through the door. “I’m actually pretty stealthy. And I’m new. This guy?” he says, pointing to Kolivan. “Don’t get me started.” He gets a soft laugh for that and counts it as a win. 

“Okay then. Thank you,” Colleen says. She pulls open the door leading into a dim room. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help.” They both bid her goodbye and head in. The scent of candle wax and paper fills the room. The only illumination is the sunlight filtering in through the paper panels in the wall and a guttering candle on a low desk stacked high with books, scrolls and maps. 

Katie, or Pidge, sits at the far side of the desk amid a circle of open books. She’s leaning over several maps, too busy marking and measuring features that she hardly seems to notice the two of them have joined her. Lance glances to Kolivan, obediently follows him to sit on the cushions across from her. After a long moment, Kolivan clears his throat. 

“Thanks for coming,” Pidge says, hardly looking up from her work. “Things were a bit neater when I was expecting you but I figured I would just get back to work while I was waiting.” Lance isn’t entirely sure if he should take that as a jab or not. 

“Uhm, sorry, I know,” Lance starts. “I don’t really know how to explain it. I was trying to get some sleep. There was this dog. I got a little distracted…” he’s cut off when Pidge laughs under her breath. 

“You found one of our new problems,” she says. She sits up and Lance hears her back crack as she stretches, then starts digging through a pile of books to her side. “I’m not an expert like you, Kolivan, but I’ve been doing as much research as I can. I think,” she pauses, pulling out a thick tome and opening it to a page she’s marked with a piece of folded parchment. She sets it open on the table, facing them. “We’re dealing with a hellhound.” One full page is devoted to an image of a black wolf on dark, cross hatched background. It’s mouth is open to show rows of sharp teeth and bright red tongue. The inner ears are decorated with the same deep gold as its wide pupil-less eyes. All four of them. Two where they would normally be and two smaller just underneath the first. Its fur is thick and flowy, giving it a hazy, undefined outline. Lance shivers even as Kolivan hums in agreement. 

“That’s what I think it is too. Good job, it’s out of its element now so it was disguising itself when we saw it earlier this morning,” Kolivan presses the book to Lance and he recognizes the silent order to read and study up while he has the chance. So Lance leans over the book and starts reading the opposite page describing the semi-corporeal being. 

“You said the hellhound was ‘one’ of your problems. Just so we’re all on the same page, what are the others?” Kolivan asks. Pidge starts spreading out her maps across the table. With a better look, Lance realizes they’re all of the same place, but very slightly different, with circles marking out the most prominent changes. 

“The first is obviously that the plants around here are completely out of control. Everyone in town is constantly cutting them back because if we didn’t the entire town would be overgrown in only a few days. It’s getting worse too. In a matter of a few weeks we’ve had to give up on everything beyond the city walls. People are moving further into the center of town. The Forest temple is completely lost.” She taps one of the maps. “The other temple acolytes and I have been trying to map out the area around the temple but it’s constantly changing. Some of them are talking about trying to get some fire oil and just burning it out but…” Kolivan shakes his head. 

“You have too many forest spirits living around here. Even if you didn’t burn down Reseda entirely trying that, they would make your life hell for starting a forest fire. At that point, you might as well abandon Reseda and rebuild somewhere else.” 

“Exactly. Besides, I’m still not entirely ready to give up on rescue efforts. When the Forest temple was first overgrown several people were trapped inside. Since then more than a few people, including my father and brother, have gone in to try and lead them out, but everyone’s gone missing.” 

“How long ago did this all start?” Kolivan asks. Pidge chews her lip, thinking.

“About six weeks ago there was a massive storm. Bigger than I’ve ever seen. It ripped the roofs off of houses, tore down trees, flooded the lower part of town. Just a few days after that we started seeing the hellhound. We thought it was drawn by the misfortune the storm brought but oddly enough, it only seemed to hang around the temple. We started keeping fires lit around the clock to keep it away. Thought we could starve it and make it move on but it’s just been lingering around town. It hasn’t killed anybody either. It’s not even aggressive when we try to drive it off. The worst it’s done is scared the parents who find it curled up with their children.”

Which, doesn’t follow what Lance is reading in his book at all. The text reads that hellhounds primarily prey on the elderly, children, the sick and wounded. At times it was associated with putting someone out of their misery, or beings meant to serve as scavengers or clean up after disasters. Apparently it was debated whether the hellhound was a spirit or a true demon.

“Then,” Pidge continues, about a week after the hellhound showed up, the forest started growing at astounding rates. Slow growing trees adding  _ yards  _ every day. Vines growing so fast you could see it with the naked eye. It started around the temple and before we knew it, the entire building was overtaken almost overnight. The building’s made of stone. There’s branches so thick around every door there’s no way for anyone to get out. So we abandoned it, and over the past month we’ve just been doing damage control. Every once in awhile someone would try to go back to the temple and see if they could do anything, but no one’s come back, much less with any success.” 

Kolivan leans over the desk, his eyes picking apart every detail on the maps, claws tracing around the subtle differences between them. “What do you think, Lance?” he asks.

Lance puts the marker back in the book and sets it aside. He considers the time, the missing people, the shifting maps, the storm and the new information he’s gleaned from reading about the hellhound.

“It’s weird. The Lovat river started drying up after that storm too. How much it rained? We should have been flooded, but instead it went bone dry. There’s something else here too that’s making the forest grow so wild. I don’t know what could be behind it but, if Pidge says the growth started around the temple, then I can only think that we’re going to find what we’re looking for there. People are getting lost because the forest is changing so fast no one can keep up with it. The hellhound… I don’t know. Maybe it really was just drawn by the trouble that storm called and now it’s sticking around because the forest’s growth has only made things worse.” 

“That’s mostly what I’m thinking too,” Kolivan says. He bows slightly, then stands from the desk. “Thank you, Pidge. This has been a great help and we’ll do everything we can to put things right as soon as possible.” Lance stands with him but Pidge frowns. 

“I don’t want to rush you, but when are you going?” she asks. Kolivan shrugs. 

“Sometime after dark when whatever is there is more active and easier to track,” then, slyly, “it would probably be best to make sure everyone in town stays well away from the temple tonight. Demonic activity is at an all time high right now and there’s no telling what we’ll find there.” 

‘Nice,’ Lance thinks. Pidge sighs, and settles back down with her maps, bidding them goodbye and leaving them to show themselves out. 

Outside the Holt household, Kolivan looks out across the city, where the mass of trees surrounding the temple rises prominently above the city walls. “There’s one thing I disagree with you about,” he says. Lance glances at him out of the corner of his eye. Is this a scolding, or did he do good because there’s only one thing Kolivan came to a different conclusion on?

“I’m not entirely convinced the hellhound isn’t further related to this. It’s too docile, but at the same time sticking around too stubbornly to be normal,” he says. Lance tips his head, thinking. 

“I don’t get it.” 

“Hellhounds are nearly as intelligent as higher demons. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out it had its own agenda. So, be careful if you see it again.”


	14. Chapter 14

“You’re totally sure this is it?” Lance asks, tipping his head back and squinting at the forest canopy. It’s one of the first truly hot days of the year and even though the sun had set more than an hour ago, the humidity hangs on in the windless depths of the forest. Moisture clings to Lance’s skin and clothes and he groans tiredly as he wipes the sweat from his brow. 

“It must be,” Kolivan says. He sounds like he’s just taken an easy stroll down the street instead of a three hour looping hike through the forest surrounding Reseda. “The map isn’t the greatest help lately but I’ve been to this temple often enough to remember where it is in relation to town. And look,” Kolivan says, pointing at some dark, formless point ahead of them. “There’s Trigel. We’re in the temple’s courtyard so the doors should be about fifty feet beyond her.” 

Even when Lance strains his eyes he can hardly make out more than a tall, vaguely humanoid shape. He wonders how long it will take for the Moon Goddess to gift him with the Galra’s night vision. For now, he’ll just have to take Kolivan’s word for it. With a tired huff, he takes the lead, slowly picking his way through the tiled courtyard now covered by thick, gnarled vines. 

He passes the statue, finds a short set of stairs and climbs them. But when he reaches the top, they find themselves at another impasse. Instead of stone doors, there is only a messy tangle of vines. Lance reaches out, gingerly touches one of the woody vines as if he thinks it will lash out for him. When he gets no reaction he tucks his fingers around one and pulls sharply. 

He grunts sharply in pain. The vine was perhaps an inch thick and while Lance wasn’t expecting to rip the thing in half, he  _ was  _ thinking he would have a little give to it. But it’s like trying to pull a rug from under a heavy table. The only thing giving is his shoulder.

Kolivan chuckles. “How well did that work out for you?” he asks, pulling his sword from its sheath as Lance takes a couple steps back and rubs his aching shoulder. He only gives the vine covered door an irritated look as Kolivan takes a swing. 

It bounces of so violently Kolivan flinches back to keep the tip of his blade from catching him in the chin. “What the-” the Galra huffs. Lance takes another step back, brow furrowed. There’s not even a mark where Kolivan’s blade had nicked the bark. Kolivan backs up next to him, the edge of his weapon starting to glow purple as he channels his magic into it. 

“Be careful,” he warns. He swings.

The rush of air that thuds off the wall of vines punches Lance in the chest. He gasps, staggers, his ears ringing. Otherwise he’s unharmed, but… so is the wall. Kolivan’s confusion is almost funny. His ears are pulled back tight, his back stiff and he looks almost skittish as he prods the wall with the tip of his sword. 

“What is it?” Lance asks. Far behind them, he hears something rustling, but when he glances back he sees nothing. He chalks it up to the last of Kolivan’s attack rippling through the leaves. Kolivan prods again, frowning deeply. 

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen something like this. It’s not a forcefield, because I’m touching it. Unless it’s very tight and-” he’s cut off by something crashing into the courtyard from the far side.

“Get away from me you stupid mutt!” a girl calls. Her foot catches in a branch creeping along the floor and she goes sprawling over the tiles with a sharp curse. The voice tugs at the back of Lance’s mind until Kolivan gives a tired sigh. 

“Pidge?” Lance calls. He starts down the stairs, slowed only by the fact that he doesn’t want to trip just as bad as she did. Pidge pushes up quickly, rushes over as fast and careful as she can. A dark shape moves at the edge of the courtyard. Instinctively, Lance pushes Pidge behind him. 

It’s hard to see what the shape is initially, because his night vision is still so poor and there’s little light coming in through the forest canopy in the first place. He feels like he’s looking at a shadow detached. The edges seem blurry, swirling with every second. It steps into the courtyard. Lance steps back, pushing Pidge with him, and reaches to pull his bow off his back. 

Two bright, golden eyes open up on the shadow’s face. Then two more, smaller and closer together, just under the first set. A smaller shape swings slowly behind the shadow. A tail. 

“It’s that damn hellhound,” Pidge huffs as Kolivan’s heavier footsteps draw closer behind them. The hellhound closes the space between them by several trotting steps, it’s tongue lolling from it’s mouth as it pants. “It started following me at the edge of town and chased me all the way here,” Pidge says.

“I thought I told you not to come out here…” Kolivan mutters. Pidge ignores him, giving the hellhound a nasty look. Then to Lance, Kolivan says: “I’ve never heard of a hellhound outright chasing somebody down. Usually their prey are the weak and those that can’t get away. They’re normally something of scavengers.” 

Lance looks at those golden eyes and a sense of  _ almost  _ washes over him. A connection almost made. A message called out faintly from a distance.

“Hold on,” Lance says, moving closer to the hellhound. “I think it’s trying to tell me something.” As he draws nearer, the hellhound’s tail wags harder, it’s shadowy form nearly dissipating completely into a blur against the dark. Lance kneels several paces away, holding his hand out palm up. He couldn’t believe this demon was harmful. It  _ looked  _ too nice, first of all. It wasn’t showing any signs of aggression and seems almost eager to meet him as it closes the distance between them. Close up, Lance can see its outline easier, but it still as a little dizzying effect as it moves to press its cold nose into his palm. Lance carefully tamps down the urge to pet it, knowing he’ll likely get lost again. 

“Why are you chasing Pidge around?” he asks it. Pidge gives an exasperated groan behind him. Kolivan shushes her but, when Lance glances at them, he sees the Galra has his blade clutched tightly in his hand, ready to spring into action the second something goes wrong. 

The hellhound sniffs Lance’s hand. Its ears perk up and it walks around Lance’s side, snuffling in his bag. Lance watches, feeling the hellhound push around his bag so hard the straps dig into his shoulders. 

“What are you doing- Hey!” Lance yelps. The hellhound takes a bite out of his bag and tugs hard enough to nearly pull Lance onto his back. “Cut that out!” Lance huffs. Surprisingly, the hellhound  _ does  _ stop. Licking his face once before sniffing at his bag again. 

“Something in your bag?” Kolivan asks. He’s holding his sword looser, wandering closer until the hellhound stops to give him a wary look. Its tail swings eagerly as Lance shrugs off his bag. 

Instead of digging through the items one by one, Lance merely pulls out his balled up blanket and dumps everything else out onto the tiles. Whetstone, spare arrowheads, canteen, tinderbox, the stone core he’d collected from the slime demon in the pond. 

The stone is pulsing with a faint blue light. 

“What-” Before he can finish his thought the hellhound snaps up the cracked stone in its mouth and trots off towards the temple door. Lance rolls to his feet, haphazardly gathers his belongings and shoves them into his bag before he slings it and his bow over his his arm. All three of them catch up to the hellhound at the top of the steps. The stone shines in the hellhound’s mouth, defining its outline into something similar to the wolf Lance had seen in his room the day before. The hellhound nears the door and the stone’s light grows, soft blue coating the tile floor and the vines tangling over the door. The hellhound pushes its muzzle out, touches its nose to the vines. The light pulses brightly, then dims to almost nothing.

The vines shudder and start pulling apart, untangling themselves and revealing the weathered door underneath. 

“Holy shit,” Pidge breathes. Kolivan stares wide eyed, looking like he’s thinking much the same thing. “Where’d you get that stone, Lance? And how come the hellhound knew you had it, much less how to use it?” she asks. 

Lance meets eyes with the hellhound when it looks up at him, the dimly shining stone still clutched in its mouth. It wags his tail, shifting its weight from foot to foot impatiently. 

Pidge’s questions and a hundred more swirl in his mind. “What are you?” Lance asks. Of course, it doesn’t answer. 

The hellhound’s intentions seem to be the only thing clear about it. It wants something in this temple and it seems perfectly willing to lead them there. The door opens under Lance’s hand with a deep groan. The hellhound slips through the gap as soon as it can, its nails clicking on the floor in the solid darkness within.


	15. Chapter 15

The inside of the Forest Temple is a wall of inky darkness. If the hellhound didn’t have the glowing stone in its maw, it would have disappeared entirely. Even now, shuffling through the dark halls only a few feet behind it, Lance can see its outline beyond its shoulders once again fuzzing out, as if its entire being wants to melt into the darkness around them. 

“Man,” Lance breathes, fighting to keep up with the hellhound with Pidge gripping a handful of his jacket at the small of his back. “Kolivan, there’s no way we’re getting anything done in here. It’s too dark. I can’t see anything more than two feet in front of me.” The hellhound glances back at him, its wagging tail a mere suggestion of motion in the darkness. 

“It’s hard for me to see in here as well,” Kolivan says. “There’s not enough moonlight anywhere.”

Pidge tugs on Lance’s jacket, leading him gently to the left. “There should be a room over here,” she says. “An entry way? We usually keep a few spare torches in there for people keeping night watch or travelers.” They feel along the wall for the room long enough that Lance is sure the hellhound has simply taken the stone and left them, but when he glances back, the dog is lingering impatiently a short distance away. It takes some feeling around to find a single torch and longer for Lance to feel around in his pack for his flint to light the thing, but soon enough they have a flame going to make their way through the temple.

The hellhound sets a faster pace than before, picking its way through the halls clotted with vines and choking plants. Pidge lingers at the edge of the torches light, occasionally running her fingers over the plants. “This is amazing. I never realized the forest had gotten so far in. I’ve never seen this before. In just a few weeks? This should be impossible,” she says. She reaches for another that’s still shrinking back from the stone’s light, letting the vine pull through her hand. “And look, it’s moving so quickly.” 

“Be careful,” Kolivan warns. “I wouldn’t be surprised to learn the plants are connected to some kind of demon.” Pidge jerks her fingers away, going quiet. The hellhound leads them down another hall, down a wide set of steps. 

“You alright?” Lance asks. “You know, Kolivan and i do this stuff all the time so if you want to-” 

“I’m  _ fine _ ,” Pidge huffs. “I’m just wondering where everyone lost went to. I thought I would see some sign of them if I could get in the temple but…” 

“We’ll find them,” Lance hums. “Whether it’s now or when we figure out where this guy is taking us,” Lance says, motioning to the hellhound in front of them. “I’m sure we’ll find-” 

“Lance, shut up-” Kolivan hisses behind them. Lance frowns deeply. Does he think he’s going to get her hopes too high for finding them  _ alive _ ? He knew that prospect didn’t look good but even if he thought it did, why was it such a big deal? But Kolivan isn’t looking at him, he’s staring over his shoulder into the room ahead of them as he follows them in, ducking through the doorway. 

“Do you smell that?” Kolivan asks. Lance opens his mouth, confused, but pauses and sniffs at the air. The hellhound is pacing, whining around the stone in its mouth where it lingers in the hall. Lance wrinkles his nose, swallows around the thick smell that seems to coat his tongue. 

“Ugh, smells like something’s rotting,” he huffs. In the torchlight, Pidge goes pale. Small hands grab at his own, snatching the torch from his grip. Pidge rushes ahead into the room with a muttered curse. 

“Hey!” Lance and Kolivan nearly run into each other trying to follow Pidge across the room. The hellhound barks behind them, the stone clattering on the tile floor. 

The smell quickly deepens. It sticks in Lance’s throat, makes his stomach turn. He stops, gagging and spitting on the floor. Kolivan runs ahead towards Pidge and the circle of light around her. 

“Dad! Matt!” Pidge calls. Lance blinks the tears from his eyes. Kolivan has his hood tugged around his neck and pressed over his nose so Lance does the same, pulling the collar of his shirt up and pressing it over his mouth. Pidge stands in front of a wall covered in huge, bulbous structures. They’re about the size of a grown man, and vaguely shaped like humans, as if a sheet were pulled tight over them. Not made of the same vines like much of what’s covering the rest of the temple but rather a moist webbing in a sickly looking yellow-green.

“They’re cocoons?” Pidge asks herself. She tugs at Kolivan’s arm, getting a surprised huff from him. “Can you cut them open? These have to be were the missing people went!” From her own belt, Pidge tugs out a small, curved dagger and starts chipping away at the nearest cocoon. Kolivan pulls out his own blade, but before he can move to help Pidge cut one of the cocoons from the wall, he pauses, looks out into the darkness on the other side of the room. 

“Move!” Kolivan snatches the torch from Pidges hand and flings it to the far side of the room. Lance is blinded by the speeding light. He grabs for his dagger before he can make sense of what has Kolivan so panicked. The galra shoves Pidge behind him, towards Lance as the torch rolls to a stop on the floor. Lance doesn’t see anything except more vines at first. The same yellowish color as the cocoon, thinner, slimier, with flower buds at irregular intervals. Lance squints, struggling to make sense of it in scant light and across the room. 

Then one of the buds opens, and Lance catches the wet sheen of an eye. Another contains circular rows of flat teeth arranged like a blooming rose. Out of a third a limp tongue slips from between the petals. 

Something whips through the light so quickly the torch nearly gutters out. Pidge gives a horrified gasp, chokes, and then there’s the wet thud of Kolivan’s blade cutting through a vine, the edge of his weapon glowing with his magic. 

“Lance! Get out of here!” Kolivan grunts, slashing at another vine. If he’s getting through it or if it’s bouncing off like the barricade at the temple’s entrance Lance can’t tell in the dark. He moves to step in, either to grab Pidge and flee or to help cut back the demon on the other side of the room. He gets two steps before he’s pulled viciously onto his back. Panicked, Lance swings back with his empty hand, gets a handful of fur and sharp teeth in his upper arm. 

“Cut it out!” Lance cries. He tries to stand, but the hellhound pulls him back sharply by the arm, dragging him across the floor. Lance struggles. Vines dig in at his back. They’re pulling at his clothes, fighting to wrap around his limbs even as the hellhound pulls him through the doorway. Dread builds in his stomach like a block of ice as the doorway closes, covered by those yellowish vines tangling together into a solid wall. Lance is up on his feet the instant the hellhound releases him. He jabs his dagger between the vines. The entire door twists, wrenching the blade from his hand so hard his fingers pop. 

“Fuck!” Lance hisses as the vines swallow his knife. On the other side he hears a muffled struggle and his heart sinks. All this, everything he’d had with Kolivan, his hope of becoming a hunter, are over in a moment. They were just investigating. Now he’s on his own, Kolivan and Pidge fighting for their lives in a nearly pitch black room. 

“What the hell did you do that for?” Lance hisses at the dog. It stares, unmoving, its two sets of golden eyes calm and yet somehow understanding. Lance bites into his cheek. “What are we going to do? I-” Lance heaves a shaking breath. “I can’t do this on my own…” 

The hellhound barks. The sound echoes off the walls and overpowers the scuffle going on in the room behind them for a moment. The hound snatches up the glowing blue stone and jogs briskly down the hall, further into the temple. Lance hesitates long enough for the glow to nearly disappear before he follows. He’s not getting through that door with only a bow and arrow, not in total darkness. The hellhound seems like it knows what it wants to do and Lance has no choice but to follow it, even if only because it’s carrying the only light source.


	16. Chapter 16

“Come on, come on…” Lance pants. The hellhound still moves at a trot in front him but Lance feels like they might as well be crawling. With every bright pulse of the stone in the hound’s mouth the plants retreat more, webbing formed by tangled vines pulling apart and shrinking against the wall. The hellhound can duck and weave, but Lance must lamely urge the plants aside as he follows him down what feels like  _ yet another _ hallway.

He has no idea where he’s at. He hasn’t been to the Forest Temple in years and even then he was only visiting and never made it past the front few rooms. These look like they might be private quarters coming off the hall, so they might be towards the back of the temple. 

“Damnit,” Lance breaths. The hellhound crouches, slowly crawls through a particularly rough tangle of plants that pull, but refuse to part, for the stone. “Seriously? I can’t fit through there.” The hellhound disappears with a quiet huff. He’ll have to. 

The thorny vines catch and pull at his clothes as Lance drops to his belly and pulls himself through on his arms. This is ridiculous. This is so  _ slow _ and he’s too painfully aware that Kolivan and Pidge are still trapped with that weird organ plant and those huge cocoons. 

“What  _ was _ that?” Lance asks the hound. He inches forward, but suddenly his arms have nothing to support him and he stumbles six inches or so, catching his chin on the edge of a stair. “You! Damn you!” Lance puffs, he struggles to pull himself the rest of the way beyond the snag, nearly tripping over another stair in frustration. 

The hellhound, waiting for him at the base, merely flicks one of its ears. Lance sighs. His throat feels tight. “I’m sorry,” he mutters. The hellhound wags its tail, as if to say ‘I understand’. Lance carefully makes his way down the stairs, wiping the blood from his chin. 

The atmosphere at the bottom of the stairs is noticeably different than at the top. Lance instantly knows that they’re in a basement. The air is cooler, a little more damp and the darkness somehow seems even deeper than before. So much so that without the stone Lance is sure he would have completely lost the hellhound. 

“What do you have down here, buddy?” Lance asks. The hellhound trots down the hall, makes it about six feet and runs nose first into a solid wall of vines. It snuffles, dropping the stone in its surprise and if Lance weren’t so worked up over the mortal danger he’d left Kolivan and Pidge in he would have thought it was funny. 

Instead, his heart drops into his stomach. Seems they reached a dead end that even the hellhound wasn’t expecting. The hound looks between Lance and the blockade as if Lance could suddenly do something about the plants when he’d been completely worthless up until now. It whimpers, then barks once, sharp enough to leave Lance’s ears ringing. 

“What-” Lance starts. The hellhound focuses on the walls, dancing from foot to foot. 

Someone calls through the wall, distant and unintelligible, but undeniably questioning. 

“Hello?” Lance calls. His heart lurches thinking someone else has been trapped here in this pitch black basement. How? It’s been so long since the temple was accessible. They should be weak beyond speech by now. He closes in on the wall and pulls at the vines despite knowing full well he can’t budge them. 

The voice calls again, closer, hopeful. The hellhound starts barking again, its whole body wiggling with how hard it’s wagging its tail. Lance pulls at the vines and listens to the back and forth between the hellhound and whoever is on the other side of the wall. 

The person, must be mere feet from him. They calls again and now Lance can make out that they’re asking a question, but not in any language he’s ever heard before. Something harsh and complicated, completely alien to him. The hellhound clearly recognizes it because it jumps up, scratching at the wall and whimpering in frustration. 

The vines start to move. They pinch Lance’s fingers for half a second before he jerks his hand away. He shuffles back and watches as the vines untangle themselves and pull away from the center, creating a small corridor in the middle. Something steps out. Lance flinches, squinting into the darkness. He can’t tell  _ what  _ the figure is. It’s almost formless, something little more than a deeper shape in the surrounding darkness. The only definition is the slim fingers clutching a green stone to its chest. 

Which it promptly drops in favor of crouching and nearly melding with the fuzzy form of the hellhound. It coos in that strange language. It’s laugh is odd, but recognizable as it hugs the hellhound tightly around the neck. 

It looks at him. Or Lance  _ thinks  _ it looks at him because its head moves and he feels like he’s being watched. It asks a question Lance can’t understand. He shrugs, helpless. The hellhound nuzzles at its face, then wriggles until the form lets it go. The dog grabs the green stone and pushes it into Lance’s hand. 

“This will help?” Lance asks. The hound licks the backs of his fingers, noses to the previously immovable wall. The blue stone couldn’t do anything for that doorway separating him from Kolivan and Pidge. Seems like the green stone might. 

The form stands. It says something, flashes sharp, pearly teeth at him, imitating a smile. Lance shudders. But it’s clearly happy and apparently grateful for whatever help Lance has apparently offered it so he musters a weak smile back. The figure strokes the hellhound between the ears. Both turn back down the hall the figure appeared from and disappear into the darkness. Lance opens his mouth to call for them, to offer to try and show them the way out. He’s cut off by the sudden, overwhelming sense of being alone. 

“Showing them the way back, huh, buddy?” Lance mutters after the hellhound.

He snatches up the blue stone from the floor where the hellhound dropped it and rushes back up the stairs as fast as he can. There’s got to still be something he can do for the others.

* * *

 

“Kolivan?” Lance calls. He’s shocked to find that most of the plants have shrunk entirely against the wall, and what few are left to block his way quickly pull away from the stones in his hands. Nothing blocks his way. He sprints. 

“Kolivan!” He’s  _ still  _ not sure where he is. He’s just backtracking, struggling to remember what turns he and hellhound took. He’s rushing, but it still feels too slow, like he’s already too late to do anything more useful than plod his way back to Reseda and apologize for fucking up so catastrophically. 

He slows to a stop in a crossway between two halls. He pants raggedly. His heart thuds hollowly in his ears and scatters his thoughts. 

He hears someone. Down the hall to his right. The words unintelligible but instantly, Lance recognizes the deep timbre of Kolivan’s deep voice. Lance wheezes, his relief sapping what little scrap of breath he has left. 

He sprints down the hall. He nearly trips over a stray vine, catches himself at the last second. “Kol- fuck- Kolivan!” he puffs. He hardly realizes the doorway cutting him off before is gone before he’s bolting through it. Kolivan is there, kneeling in the middle of the room with his back to the door. 

Lance can’t help himself. The relief washing over him seeing Kolivan’s  _ okay  _ makes him forget anything else. He presses himself to Kolivan’s back, hugging him around the chest. 

The next instant finds him on his back, Kolivan baring his teeth with a vicious snarl. 

They stare at each other for a tense second. Lance drops the stones and holds his hands palm out. “Sorry, just. I’m really glad you’re alright,” he says. Kolivan grumbles, his ear flicking and all the tension bleeds out of him at once. Pidge sighs tiredly. Lance glances over and realizes he’s missed quite a bit. 

For one, The wall of cocoons in is tatters. A handful of emaciated people lean against the wall. Most are dressed in the Forest temple’s green robes and surprisingly, most seem to be alive, if barely conscious. The wall where Lance had seen hints of that mutated plant is little more than a smouldering wall of coals, the torch guttering out in the corner. His own arm is smeared with blood. He tugs his sleeve back because he doesn’t  _ remember  _ cutting himself but he glances up at Kolivan and gasps at the deep stain in the side of his shirt. 

“Oh, crap, Kolivan I’m sorry-” he rolls back onto his feet as Kolivan sits heavily and drags his hand over his face. 

“I’m okay- Lance-  _ Quit hovering _ ,” Kolivan pants, pushing Lance back again. “That-” he says, motioning to the wall. “Is what I think was a Datura. I got a bit of venom from it. I need-” 

“Go to the back of the temple, Lance. Past the kitchen. Downstairs. There’s a storage room and we keep a- oh, fuck it,” Pidge says, dropping one of the missing people’s wrists with a sigh. “I’ll get it myself. There’s medical supplies and probably enough antivenom for everyone. Just… make sure nobody dies for the next five minutes? I don’t think it’ll be that hard,” Pidge says, she rushes from the room and her footsteps quickly disappear down the hall. 

“What happened?” Lance asks. Kolivan hums tiredly, stretching out on his uninjured side. Lance moves over to the missing acolytes against the wall and starts checking them over. Tired, but definitely there. A few are injured, though Lance thinks they’ll be able to make it long enough for Pidge to get back and for everyone to get carted back to Reseda as well. They’re… definitely lucky. 

“You weren’t gone that long. Pidge saw the Datura and thought to throw the torch in it almost before I could figure out what it was,” Kolivan huffs tired laughter. 

“You’ve seen them before? That thing was pretty wild,” Lance muses. He helps a young man looking remarkably like Pidge sit up straight. 

“Mn, they aren’t unheard of in this area. Galra cull them every time they come through and give them to the temple to make antivenom. They feed on corpses and sort of ‘absorb’ the features they feel would be useful to them. But they’re usually no taller than a couple feet. This one was massive, or a nest of them. It looked so strange because it was copying the people in those cocoons-” Kolivan wheezes. “Ugh.” 

“You gonna make it?” Lance asks. 

“Yeah, it’s just…” Kolivan sighs. “Venom makes it a little hard to breathe-”

Lance shuffles over to Kolivan and looks over him with worry. Lacking any better idea of what to do, he brushes one of Kolivan’s ears between his fingers. Kolivan quickly flicks it away. “Cut that out,” he huffs. Lance laughs. 

“Okay, just hang in there long enough for Pidge to give you some of that antivenom. I promised her I wouldn’t let anyone die on me.” 


	17. Chapter 17

“So what happened to you? I never asked,” Kolivan starts. Lance doesn’t blame him because, to be honest, neither one of them have really had the time to sit down and talk about anything for several days. It had taken them most of the day to get help from Reseda, force a cart through the forest to the temple and get everyone back into town and to proper medical attention. And Lance, being able bodied and not going anywhere soon without Kolivan, had been doing any and every little errand and task he’d been set to. They were certainly busy, with a dozen people suffering from what could best be called ‘exposure’ along with the Datura’s toxin. 

So right now, sitting next to Kolivan’s sleeping mat and making them both tea, it seems like that drama at the temple happened much longer ago. “Hm,” he starts, pouring more sugar into his glass than Kolivan’s, “I didn’t have any choice but to follow that hellhound downstairs. I wasn’t getting through the door: the vines snapped the handle of my dagger off. He just… seemed to know what he wanted so I figured I would follow him and see what he was up to. It was super dark, but there was like a path… for that stone he took out of my bag. He took me downstairs to the basement and it got weird.” 

“Weird?” Kolivan grunts as he gets one arm under himself and sits up. He’s still sore from the injury in his side, and a bit worn from the toxin’s effect, but he’s well on his way to recovering. 

“Well, there was another uh, shadow person? In there? When they talked to me it wasn’t anything I could understand. You know how the hellhound would get kind of hard to see when it was too dark? They were like that too. And they had another stone!” Lance sets his tea aside and pulls said green stone out from where it’s resting under his pack. He sets it into Kolivan’s outstretched hand. 

“Some of the plants wouldn’t react to the blue one, but the green would do the trick,” he hums. “They knew each other. The hellhound was really excited to see them. They seemed happy. I think that person thanked me and then they left. Or more like. Disappeared?” 

“Who do you think that person was?” Kolivan asks. But he asks it in the way Lance knows means he’s testing him. Or prodding his thoughts because Kolivan already has at least a decent idea. 

“I think they might have been the hellhound’s owner. I’m not entirely sure what they have to do with the plants growing out of control or the stones but… Pidge said the hound was hanging around the temple no matter what they did right? I think they somehow came over to this ‘side’ against their will and got separated,” Lance says. 

“Mn,” Kolivan hums. Lance knows he’s hit on just about the same conclusion as Kolivan. “There are other planes that have humanoids living in them, but it’s supposed to be difficult to… hm, perceive them? I’ve never seen one myself, but some of the other hunters have.”

“It’ll be nice to talk to some of them about it,” Lance hums. Kolivan rumbles softly.

“I’m sure they’ll be eager to meet you properly. We don’t get new hunters too often,” he says. They both sit there in pleasant silence. Lance watches Kolivan sip at his tea, rolling the green stone end over end in his hand. In the cut of his loosened robe, Lance can see the edge of the bandages wrapped around the Galra’s chest. “Kolivan?” he asks. 

“Mn?”

“I get how you got through this, but what about everyone else? You only got a hit of that Datura’s venom for maybe half an hour but it put you out of commission for days. Some of those other people…” he trails, off, brow furrowing in confusion. 

“There’s no way they should have lived?” Kolivan finishes for him. Lance nods, glances to the door and leans in to whisper. 

“I can get some of the younger acolytes  _ maybe  _ but Pidge’s dad is Coran’s age! And he’s nearly better off than you! I thought you said the Datura feed off of corpses…” he says. Kolivan hums and doesn’t answer immediately, instead continuing on pondering over the green stone. 

“It must be a mutation. Because they  _ do _ feed on corpses. They’re plants. They can’t hunt and they have no means to trap their own prey. I’ve never seen any Datura create those cocoons, nor any one specimen that was so big.” Kolivan says. Again, that knowing glance. He wants Lance to think about it. 

“So there’s three things going on here,” Lance sighs. He stares hard at the stone, his brain turning ponderously over the issues. “First, what made the Datura mutate?”

“With a vengeance,” Kolivan tacks on. 

“And second: is it related to why the missing persons didn’t die? Third. Was it the same thing that dragged the hellhound and its owner to our side?” 

“You’re assuming the third. That they were somehow dragged over,” Kolivan says softly. “But I’ll give it to you because I can’t help but think the same thing. To be honest, almost any other time I would have been content to chalk up the first and third to the work of demons, and the second to the Goddess’s protection. But it’s too much all at once. And after what happened at Watchet?” Lance grinds his teeth, his canines aching. He thinks of that green stone clutched in the figure’s hands. The hellhound not only sensing the blue one in his pack, but knowing exactly what to do with it. 

“Ugh, I can’t help but think that person I met knew more about this than we do…” he sighs. 

“There’s nothing to be done about it. They came from a different plane of existence and it’s simply a rule of nature that we could never understand each other. Even if they wanted to tell you, they wouldn’t be able to articulate it in any way you could comprehend. I suppose the important thing to take away from this is that they trusted this stone to you. They have some kind of power and I guess they think you could figure out what it means on your own,” Kolivan says. He offers the stone to Lance. Lance purses his lips. 

“Well, what about you?” he asks, feeling sly. 

Kolivan opens his mouth, but they’re interrupted when someone knocks lightly at the door to their room. Pidge slides the door open, poking her head in. 

“Sorry to interrupt but someone from Aureolin just came into town with a cart asking if there were any hunters around,” she says. Lance perks up, pulls another empty cup off the tray to make a third cup of tea. Pidge cuts him short. “Well, actually, if you’re up to meeting him out front. He’s got some pretty interesting stuff with him.”


	18. Chapter 18

“What.” Lance starts. The Aureolin monk, some tall broad guy named Hunk gives him an uncomfortable smile and flicks the canvas further back over his cart. Lance shudders. The front of the cart is loaded with normal goods. Flour, sugar, nails and horseshoes and a couple stacks of neat, sandy tiles. Towards the back, hidden smartly under the heavy canvas, was the interesting stuff. There’s some rocks, some rolled up furs but- “Are those  _ spiders _ ?” The rounded bodies and curled, dead legs looked familiar but they also looked kind of sick, were  _ far _ too large, and he was pretty sure those were way too many legs. 

“Yeah, I think so, but please don’t ask me to pick them up. I left my shovel at home and thinking about these things alive…” Hunk says. 

“No worries,” Kolivan says. He reaches in and picks up one himself. Both Hunk and Lance recoil. It’s bigger than his hand. “Where did you get these?” 

“Okay, this is going to sound weird but there’s this uh, door? Showed up in one of our warehouses and it just randomly spits out  _ stuff _ . Like, look,” Hunk says, reaching into the cart and unrolling one of the hides. Lance’s brow shoots up. Coarse fur speckled white on a searing red. “Couple nights ago about a dozen of these guys came out and killed just about every pet in the neighborhood. They were kinda… best I can say is they were shaped like one of those gila monsters you see around Aureolin except they had this fur, obviously. One of the other acolytes told me he saw one eat a cat whole! What the hell?” 

He tosses the skin back into the cart and pulls out one of the rocks a little bigger than his fist. Lance starts to get nervous when he notices Hunk going pale even before he raps it hard on the edge of the cart. The rock snaps open and a stream of bright, fresh looking blood rushes out, followed closely by a sharp, coppery scent. Hunk wrinkles his nose, holding the rock out from himself and pulling the rock apart. A pint of blood splashes at his feet, the dirt almost instantly soaking it up. “Geez-” he pants, dropping both halves of the rocks and groaning weakly. 

“Weak stomach?” Kolivan asks, bemused. Hunk spits. Lance can’t help but huff laughter even though his own stomach is turning. 

“Yeah, you didn’t have to do that…” he says. He scuffs dirt over the bloody spot. “So uh, how long has this been going on?”

“Six, seven weeks? It showed up the same night a crazy storm nearly pulled one of our towers down.” Kolivan and Lance share a look. Surely the same store didn’t hit  _ everywhere  _ at the same time? Hunk continues. “It didn’t do anything but freak everyone out for nearly a month but now it just lets something new out every few days and we’re left scrambling trying to deal with it. There weren’t any hunters already in Aureolin when this started and with the forest so overgrown we’ve been cut off from Reseda- which, thanks by the way. I’m sure that’s why you were here in the first place. But we’re really in a bind here.” 

“Sooner or later it’ll give you something you can’t handle?” Lance asks. Hunk nods.

“We’ve already had a couple close calls. Please, I know you had to have just finished here but would you be willing to come back with me? We’re more than willing to pay.” 

“Yes,” Kolivan says easily, looking over the cart. “This is just about in line with what we’re looking for. As long as you’re willing to let me borrow your cart,” he says, motioning to his chest where he’s still bandaged under his shirt. “We can leave as soon as you finish your business here.” Kolivan meanders towards the front of the cart, peering through the regular goods. “By the way, you wouldn’t happen to have any daggers for sale, would you?”

* * *

 

“Let me see your teeth,” Kolivan says. Lance huffs. He’d been dozing heavily, but Kolivan’s voice pulls him from the brink of sleep. He pulls his head out from under his blanket and squints at the dark shape of Kolivan beside him. It’s the fourth night since they left Reseda and they’re camped right at the edge of the forest, where the trees thin out into the vast, grassy plains beyond. Across the dead fire, Hunk snores. 

“Uh...why?” He runs his tongue over his teeth, pausing curiously over the double canines that have been growing in over the past week or so. 

“The Goddess didn’t change anything else about you after what happened at the Forest temple so I thought it must have been your teeth,” Kolivan says. Lance frowns, setting his jaw and aching. 

“You’re being weird,” Lance huffs. 

“They did,” Kolivan says. Like he already knows. Lance rolls his eyes because if he already knows then why even bother asking? “You haven’t been eating.” Lance turns onto his back, pulls back his upper lip and flashes his teeth. Kolivan hums, leaning in a little. 

“Yeah, okay? I bit the hell out of my cheek the other day,” Lance admits. “Why are you asking me so early?” 

“It’s time to get up anyways,” Kolivan says. Lance frowns, because that means it’s about midnight and as late as Kolivan will ever let him sleep in. “And I didn’t want to ask while Hunk was awake. Are you still interested? In this?” Kolivan asks. His voice deepens, gets softer somehow. Lance stares at him and he understands that this is something Kolivan has been thinking about a lot. 

“Yeah, I am,” he says. He shifts, right to the edge of his bedroll. Just close enough that he can hear Kolivan breathe, feel a hint of his body heat. “Honestly it’s been  _ weird  _ but not the worst, you know? I like it,” Lance says. He makes a show of pulling the blanket up to his chin and making it perfectly clear he intended to sleep in. To his side, he hears Kolivan get settled again and for a second he thinks that’s the end of it. 

“It gets worse, Lance,” he rumbles after a long minute of silence. Lance opens his eyes again. He stares up at the forest canopy and very suddenly, he remembers that Kolivan has only been head of the Moon Temple for… about as long as they had known each other. 

“I know,” Lance says. He regrets a little that it’s so dark and his apologetic look falls flat. Or maybe not. Kolivan’s night vision is so much better than his own. Either way he wished he could see Kolivan properly. “But is it worse? Or harder?”

“Mn,” Kolivan hums. “You’ve done good so far, and it’s clear the Goddess favors you but…”

“Yeah,” Lance says, crossing his arms over his stomach pensively. “I didn’t think demon hunting would be the safest job out there but… I think it’s worth it for me. I feel like I’ve done more good in the few weeks I’ve been tagging along with you than anything else I’ve done so far. It feels good.” 

Kolivan sighs tiredly, burrows deeper into his own blanket. Lance gives him a weak smile. “You okay?” 

Kolivan’s eyes almost seem to glimmer in the thin moonlight. “As long as you’re sure you want to do this,” Kolivan says. “You know. If you change your mind, you can leave. You don’t have to worry about leaving me in a pinch.” Lance waves him off. 

“I know. You can take care of yourself,” Lance says. Kolivan goes quiet. Lance lays there listening to the breeze rustling through the leaves and Hunk’s even snoring. “Kolivan?” 

“Hm?” 

“You’re more of a softy than I thought,” he teases. Kolivan grunts and sits up, tossing his blanket over Lance’s face.

“I’m going to patrol the area. You’re free to get up whenever you want to,” he says. Lance laughs. Kolivan’s blanket smells strongly of lavender. 


	19. Chapter 19

The next morning Lance stares at Kolivan from the back of Hunk’s cart, his legs swinging with each jerking step Hunk’s mule takes on the well worn path leading through the plains between Aureolin and Reseda. Kolivan walks alongside them in long, loping strides. Occasionally he’s pushed into the tall grass when the path becomes too narrow. Lance yawns. The early morning sun is warm on the back of his neck. Kolivan, walking along with the cart, squints against it. He’s frowning deeply, but any hint of the concern he’d shown Lance the night before is gone. Today, Kolivan seems business as usual. 

“Why don’t you ride with me?” Lance asks, leaning on one of the cart’s walls. Kolivan gives him a noncommittal grunt. Lance sighs and rests his head on his arms. “No? You’re not tired?” 

“No,” Kolivan says, though he does wander a bit closer to Lance. “Why would I be?” Lance hums, watching Kolivan push his way through the knee high grass beside him. 

“I don’t know,” Lance says. “I guess because you seemed kind of stressed last night. I didn’t think you had slept well.” Kolivan only rumbles lowly. 

“I’m fine,” he says after a few long seconds. “We’ve just been busy. I’m….thinking.” Then, before Lance can prod him, he leans in: “To be honestly I don’t know how to handle this door Hunk is telling us about. There’s no way to know without seeing it but these kinds of things… they bother me. Other demons, I know what to expect. Demonic  _ objects  _ are something different entirely. They don’t work on this realm’s rules.” Lance smiles tightly. 

“There’s nothing to be done about the rules of our universe or any other one, so there’s nothing to worry about it until the time comes, right? We’ll just have to trust that we’ll figure it out when we get there,” Lance says. Kolivan’s gaze snaps to him, golden eyes narrowing. 

“Oh, so you’re experienced enough to turn my own advice on me?” he says. Lance laughs and can’t quite look at Kolivan’s tiny smile with a straight face. 

“Maybe? I’m getting a lot of practice-”

“Hey guys?” Hunk calls from in front of the cart, cutting them both off. “It’s kinda hard to make out, but you can see Aureolin coming up soon. We should be there within a couple hours.” Lance turns, eyes aching in the sunlight. His mouth drops open. He’s never seen such massive towers.

* * *

 

Lance cranes his neck as they pass through the broad arched doors leading into Aureolin. They’re made of full tree trunks, probably imported from Reseda’s forest and worn smooth and bright by time. Secured together by thick bands of dark metal, they make Lance feel miniscule. The cart pulls smoothly over the well maintained street. Lance’s neck aches admiring the intricate detailing on the stone arch around the wooden doors and spreading over the wall that wraps around the whole city. A myriad depictions of animals and people, workers and soldiers, natures and clumps of buildings in a hundred different styles. An entirely new cityscape etched out in golden stone.

Kolivan’s low hum pulls Lance from his admiring. “You’ve never seen this before?” he asks. Lance huffs, hops off the cart and trots up to walk beside Kolivan. 

“No, I’ve never been further than Reseda,” Lance admits. The main thoroughfare of Aureolin is wide and busy, but even though the expanse is crowded with carts and foot traffic, it seems they hardly have to slow to move deeper into the city. There’s an impressive order to the workings of Aureolin: like there’s a clear and well known path to the traffic. There’s none of the casual winding through the streets Lance is so used to seeing in Watchet on market days despite Aureolin being so much more thickly populated. “There’s so many people here,” Lance says, following Kolivan up to the front of the cart near Hunk. “But it’s so neat and clean and everything is so big. Hunk, how did this happen? If you hadn’t told us about the door, I never would have thought anything weird was going on here.”

“Aureolin is the oldest city on the continent,” Hunk says easily. “The only older temples are the Fire and Wind temples up in the the Altean Mountains to the north, but Aureolin is the first true  _ city  _ in this part of the world. We’re a city of merchants. We like to keep things tidy and in order because that just makes business easier. And the smoother things run, the more trade there is. It’s the basics,” Hunk says. 

As they come to an intersection he pulls the cart to a stop waiting for cross traffic. Lance watches curiously. Though he can’t find any signs or officials directing traffic, it still runs smoothly. As if everyone in the city both knows some unspoken set of rules even for something so small as crossing the street and agreed to follow them. Hunk points down the street to the right and left. On both sides the street isn’t lined with carts or stalls of goods, but brick and mortar shops built into the floor level of the surrounding buildings. It leaves room for something Lance has never seen in person before: marked spaces to park carts, and tidy rows of hitches for horses, mules and oxen. 

They start across the intersection, down a slightly narrower street directly ahead of them. “We’ll head to the Earth Temple for now, if you don’t mind. It’s pretty close to the neighborhood the door is in and I need to drop this cart off and let everyone know you’re here.” Kolivan nods in agreement. “But, you probably wouldn’t know if you didn’t come here often but the outskirts aren’t usually so busy. Aureolin is built into blocks that can be shut off from each other simply by closing the gates between them. The door appeared in a district that’s populated mostly with our masonry buildings. It’s been evacuated and shut off so the only people still in there are those working security. So, while it’s not quite so dangerous as perhaps Reseda had been…”

“It’s still a problem you can’t solve on your own,” Kolivan fills in. “It’s fine. Objects like these are rare and no less dangerous just because they can be contained more easily than something truly living.

* * *

 

The Earth Temple is one of the largest buildings Lance has ever seen. Sure, Watchet’s own temple was a three story building, complete with its own intricately detailed roofs. But Lance knew the third story was purely structural: they never could figure out how to open it up further into living quarters without compromising the entire building. But the Earth Temple, when Lance had asked, had  _ five  _ floors. It was an insane number, and an insanely tall building that loomed over everything else around it. Even here in the courtyard on the second level, they’re nearly even with many of the buildings around them and it leaves Lance feeling mildly sick thinking of how high up they are.

Lance kneels at the edge of a neat, flat rock garden, admiring the even furrows raked into the gravel and at the same time fighting the urge to run his fingers through them and mess them up. He glances back to Kolivan who’s sitting on a bench against the wall behind him, his ears flicking mildly against the early afternoon sun. 

“Hey Kolivan? What was that word Hunk used when he described the shape of the temple. It was sig-something, but now I can’t remember what it was,” Lance says. 

“Ziggurat,” Kolivan answers easily. “It’s an ancient word for ‘pinnacle’. The Wind Temple is built the same way, but Aureolin’s temple is much bigger,” Kolivan tips his head back, squints up the steep, thick walls of the temple’s upper levels. “Perhaps because there’s not as much space at the peak of Alfor. Perhaps because the Wind temple is thought to be six or seven hundred years older and they hadn’t quite figured out how to build to high yet.” 

Lance blinks at the gravel garden, looks out to a squat but elegantly groomed bonsai in the center. He struggles to wrap his mind around all those facts. In the forests along the Lovat river, there are no five story buildings, or ziggurats or temples millenia old built atop the mountains themselves. These things he’s learned about in theory when he started studying under Coran in the Water Temple had never really sunk into him as  _ real  _ things until now. He feels small, and ignorant.

“How do you know all that? About the Wind Temple?” Lance asks. Kolivan huffs something almost like laughter.

“The Wind Temple was my home before I became a hunter.”

“No shit? You’re a long way from home. Who taught you all that history? The most I ever got was a run down on where everything was and guardian deities and stuff and that was deep enough for me. There wasn’t anything about ages or word meanings like- I’ve never even  _ heard  _ of a ziggurat thing. I didn’t know how big Aureolin was. Who taught you that?”

“I’ve been a Galra a very long time, Lance. You pick things up as you go,” Kolivan says.  

“Okay, and for curiosity's sake, about how long did it take you to pick up that much?” 

“That, I think, is something that’s going to remain a mystery. Let’s just say that one thing we Galra don’t quite know is what we would consider old age. Demons tend to get us before we can figure that out and so far, I’ve been lucky,” Kolivan says. Distantly, there’s a call towards the temple’s entrance. Kolivan’s ears twitch for the sound, eyes narrowed as he tries to pick apart the words. 

Lance listens as well, but he can’t make out anything specific. At any rate, Kolivan doesn’t seem too concerned and Lance can’t make out anything panicked in the call. 

Then Hunk, closer, calls their names. They both stand and without even looking at each other they make their way out of the garden and around the outer wall. They find Hunk standing there near the top of the steps in the shadow of the statue of their guardian, Gyrgan along with several other temple acolytes. When Hunk sees them, he smiles and waves them over. 

“The door opened again as we were coming into town. Thankfully, it doesn’t seem to be anything dangerous this time but- is there any chance you know what this is? The masons and blacksmiths have been looking over it for nearly an hour and they’re stumped,” he says. He shows his hand. He’s holding a chunk of metal. It’s not the same as the stones kept in Lance’s bag: it’s nearly pure black, or a deep, deep purple, and throughout it are veins of bright, glittering violet deposits. Lance is utterly stumped, though he thinks the color might be familiar. 

Kolivan however, gasps almost inaudibly and takes up the chunk of metal with surprising gentleness. He turns it over in his hands with a reverence Lance rarely sees from him, as if he’s holding something precious. 

“It’s Luxite,” he rumbles softly. “An  _ exceedingly  _ rare metal the Galra use to make their weapons. We’ve been recycling it for new members for millennia, but to see an entirely new piece of it…” He holds the Luxite tightly in one hand, the other digging into Hunk’s upper arm. “Who found this? Is there more? I want to know what they saw and everything he can remember about the door when this happened. And if it’s active, we need to be over there. I want to start a watch on it immediately.” 


	20. Chapter 20

“Kolivan!” 

Lance has never seen the person who found the chunk of Luxite but he knows instantly which one it is as they pass through one of the thick gates that separate the neighborhoods of Aureolin. Where the temple’s neighborhood had been vibrant and populated, passing through the gate feels like passing into another city entirely. On one side of the door are houses, markets and citizens moving about their daily lives. On the other rows of long, squat buildings, open air lots filled with neat stacks of stones in a dozen different sizes, shapes and colors. The masonry district. 

Not far on the other side of the gate, just past a chest high barricade of stone and bags of sand stand a small knot of men. Most are tall and thickly built, dressed in armor of leather and, more rarely, pieces of chainmail. These are clearly the men who work here in the workshops and stone yards during peace times and now it seems most of them have taken to working as the guards between the demonic door and the rest of the city over the past weeks. 

The one who calls to Kolivan is one of the biggest of a group of big men. Even so, that only puts him at Kolivan’s shoulder, but Lance still must tip his head back to look him in the face. He waves with a massive arm. In a first look Lance thinks he’s in his thirties, but as they near Lance is surprised to see that, under a thick, dark beard and the fresh, barely healed scars across his neck, he’s more likely only a handful of years older than Lance himself. Lance peers up at Kolivan, finds the Galra’s brow furrowed in thought. 

His mouth drops open in recognition and mild surprise. “Zaban?” he asks. The man laughs, nodding. They meet at the narrow opening in the barrier and Zaban easily takes the Luxite from Kolivan. He nods to Lance with a quick greeting, but he’s clearly far more interested in the Galra.

“Not the scrawny schoolboy you saw last time, huh? Son of a bitch, you’re bad at keeping up with friends, aren’t you?” Zaban says. Lance is surprised at how easily Zaban curses Kolivan, and even more so by the fact that Kolivan takes it in stride. He only hums mildly, an almost funny show of stoicism against Zaban’s animated ribbing. 

“I’m not your family. Antok is, so he gets first dibs on Aureolin’s jobs,” Kolivan says. Zaban seems to think that’s funny. Zaban opens his mouth but Kolivan cuts him off again. “Your uncle is fine, by the way. I haven’t seen him in several weeks, but he was well the last time I saw him.” 

“Alright then,” Zaban grumbles, though still clearly amused and unflustered by Kolivan’s terse responses. “Glad to hear Uncle Antok is still kicking around. We haven’t really given him an excuse to drop by in more than a year and now that we do, it’s you who shows up. What gives?” he asks. Kolivan sets his jaw, peers down the street instead of any of the men and Zaban’s grin drops. 

“We’ll go over that later, when we have more time,” Kolivan says. He motions to the Luxite Zaban holds. “You found that?” Zaban nods. “How did you get the door to give up  _ raw  _ Luxite?” 

None of the other men around them react much, but Zaban, with Galra in his immediate family, looks like he’s been slapped in the face. Kolivan’s pulling his blade out before Zaban can even ask for it, holding it next to the chunk of dark metal. Hunk whistles seeing how both blade and raw piece glitter much the same way in the late afternoon sun. 

“It was a dare,” Zaban says after a few seconds. Kolivan frowns deeply. Lance and Hunk share a look, though Hunk’s expression plainly reads ‘bad idea’. “A few of the guys were hanging around that door this morning because it’s been quiet and we just got to talking. I went in there thinking, well, it’s a supernatural object, right? I was thinking that it can do anything it wants. I asked it to give me something challenging to work with. And just- there it was. The door popped open and this piece of Luxite tumbled out like someone had tossed it through. It closed, locked, and that was the end of it.” 

Kolivan motions down the street and he, Lance, Hunk, Zaban and a handful of guards start their way down the center of the abandoned road. “I want to see it. What time was this?”

“Mn… between 9 and 9:30 this morning,” Zaban answers. Kolivan nods. 

“So probably six hours ago. Is there any pattern you’ve seen around when it unlocks or opens? A certain time of day, or only after a set amount of time?” he asks. Everyone responds in the negative, and as they make their way towards the door they each offer up their own experiences. It opens at any time of day. It spits out both living and non living materials, but sometimes it opens and nothing comes out at all. At least three guards are posted outside the room around the clock. It opens between as few as once a week but has opened as often as six or seven times in the same span. No one is sure if the door unlocking means for sure that it will open: no one stays in long enough to make note of that. 

The group leads them to large but unassuming warehouse a few blocks down the road. It looks much like any other building on this street aside from the three guards lingering around the double doors that’s held shut with a thick padlock and a length of chain as thick as Lance’s palm is wide looped through the handles. The air changes as they draw near. The men grow tense and worried, clearly uncomfortable about being so close to the mysterious object that’s been disrupting their lives for several weeks. 

“I need the key,” Kolivan says. And then, once one of the guards at the door presses the metal bit in his hand: “All of you, take a break for the night,” Kolivan says. Glances of surprise and doubt travel through the group. Hunk clears his throat, scuffing his foot on the stone street. 

“We’re taking over the watch, huh?” Lance asks. Kolivan nods as he fits the key into the lock and fights to work the thick chain through the door handles. Without thinking too much about it, Lance looks over his shoulder at Hunk. The Aureolin monk’s nose is wrinkled in frustration, his lip caught between his teeth. A man who deeply, truly doesn’t want to be here but whose honor won’t allow him to leave. 


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a minute since I've had to tag for this but be careful, this chapter is kinda graphic.

Seventeen hours into their watch, the door opens with a wet squelch.

The door clicking shut reverberates through the dark room. Lance stares, the hair on his arms raising on end. He’s sitting next to Hunk on either side of the door leading outside, with Kolivan pacing back and forth behind the demon door on the far side of the room where he can watch closely.

No one is within ten feet of the door and yet, Lance _watched_ it open. Slowly, about six or seven inches. Then something formless and squishy slipped through the gap in jerky motions, as if someone were poking it through from the utter darkness on the other side. Lance is so shocked it happens in slow motion. Almost like he’s out of his own body and experiencing it more through his recent memory than watching it in real time. He doesn’t realize Hunk’s got a death grip on his shoulder until Kolivan speaks up.

“Did something happen?” he asks. Lance drags his eyes of the wet _thing_ by the door to where Kolivan is edging around, giving the door a wide berth and already pulling his blade from its sheathe.

“Oooooh gods….” Hunk pants. Lance drags Hunk’s hand off of him and pushes up to his feet. “Something came out.” Instantly, Kolivan is tense and on alert. His blade is free in a quick flick of his wrist and he rounds the door in two quick steps, eyes narrowing on the unmoving lump on the ground.

“Just now?” he asks. He stops a few feet away from the object, kneeling and nudging it with the tip of his blade. Lance joins him. He barely starts to crouch before the coppery, unmistakable scent of blood hits him. He retches, standing and backing away again as he presses his sleeve to his nose.

“You didn’t see that? The door opened and _something_ pushed it through. I didn’t see what it was. It was totally black inside the door,” Lance explains. Kolivan starts pushing the thing around with his sword. The bright lines are darkened nearly to black and Lance’s stomach turns. Kolivan shakes his head. He stands halfway as he starts nudging and pulling the object back into shape. It’s larger than Lance originally thought. Thick and leathery and pale. A broad, scarred center piece with several slimmer offshoots at every rough corner.

“T-that’s a human skin,” Hunk says. His voice is flat with shock. Lance looks up at him. He’s pale, eyes wide and his forehead slicked with sweat. Lance, his own stomach rolling, stands and quickly leads him to a corner. Hunk retches violently and Lance fights back the urge to do the same by turning and watching Kolivan clean his blade of blood with the end of his wrap.

“I didn’t see anything,” Kolivan says simply once Hunk’s heaving has quieted down some. “That’s interesting. I heard it unlock. I saw the two of you reacting but from my side of the door, it didn’t move or open.” Lance frowns deeply.

“Weird, but how does that solve anything?” Lance asks. They both glance at the flayed skin, then at Hunk shivering in the corner.

“It doesn’t, but every demonic object is its own and behaves by unique rules. We have to make note of every detail. Why did we only see it open on one side? Why only on _your_ side? Why flayed remains of all things?” Kolivan asks.

“Oh man-” Hunk gasps. He glances over his shoulder, his eyes flicking down to the gore. Another visible shudder runs through him and he dry heaves. “I can’t- the blood-”

“You can go, Hunk,” Kolivan says. “The door’s locked for now. Please help us find something to wrap this up in and we’ll follow you out once we look this over.”

“I’m really sorry, you two. I offered to help and then…” Hunk swallows even as he heads for the door. Lance waves him off easily. With the door locked and their new gift harmless (if gruesome), there was little sense in forcing Hunk to stay in with them when he was so bothered when they could have him run an errand instead. Hunk unlocks the door with a thick sigh. “I’ll be right back with a couple of the guards too. I’m sure they’ll want to see and help if they can.”

When the door locks again behind Hunk, the two of them turn back to the flayed skin. “It’s male,” Kolivan says. “You can tell by the shoulder span and slimmer hips. He was thin but… probably a slave or a prisoner,” he points out the scars around the wrists and ankles.

“Here too,” Lance says. He points at the short cropped neck where the skin is bruised and chaffed in the thick, even mark of a collar. Scars line the skin’s back, old bumps and fresher wounds. Where one shoulder blade once rested there’s a brand. Sharp and sinister looking, with three prongs jutting down into a stylized skull. Lance doesn’t know who he was or where he came from or even if he’s fully human, but his heart aches all the same. “Poor guy…” Lance sighs. “Why?”

“Who knows,” Kolivan says. “But-” and he pauses, fixing Lance in his sharp, yellow gaze. “Lance, are you okay?” The question takes Lance a little off guard. He wonders if Kolivan is back into that weird mood a few nights before on their way into Aureolin, when he reminded Lance of just how dangerous their line of work was as if Lance had never realized that after several demonic encounters already. He frowns, gaze traveling between Kolivan and the demonic door. He wants to get as far away from it as he can. It’s a deep, gut feeling. Vague before but made suddenly clearer now that Kolivan has asked him about it.

There’s something _wrong_ with it. Something beyond this appearance of a heavy, metal door decorated in runes. It had an atmosphere to it, oppressive and almost sticky, like the scent of carrion sticking to the back of his throat. But Lance shrugs.

“Before I met you, I probably wouldn’t be, but I’ve seen some weird things since then. I-I don’t being here right now but I think I’ll be okay once I get some air. I’m not about to lose it or anything,” Lance pauses when Kolivan reaches out and carefully presses his fingers between his shoulders. It’s a small touch, but warm and reassuring in a way that sends an almost pleasant tingle up the back of his neck. “Hunk though…” Lance says after a quiet second. Kolivan nods.

“That’s why I was asking. Part of it may be that he’s never been exposed to something like this. He’s a temple acolyte, not a hunter like us. But, if it’s truly a phobia…” Kolivan frowns. “I have a few thoughts on how this door could work, but I need to see more before I know-” He’s cut off by a knock at the door leading outside. Kolivan answers it to find three guards along with Hunk. On Hunk’s shoulder is a thick roll of canvas and in his hand are a pair of heavy leather gloves.

Getting the skin moved and rolled up into the canvas is an ordeal that takes more than twenty minutes. The guards are horrified, but oddly curious about it, especially when Lance and Kolivan start answering their questions and giving them some of the stranger details. Lance lingers around Hunk, who still seems hesitant to even enter the room again.

“Are you going to be okay?” Lance asks. “You know, if you don’t want to do this, you don’t really have to-” Hunk cuts him off by shaking his head.

“No. I want to. I need to. I was chosen to find some hunters to handle this situation in the first place and so I feel like I need to stick with you until the end, you know? And as much as I don’t like it, I’m one of the better equipped working at the temple to help out with this. I know how to fight, even if it doesn’t look like it and if I bowed out now, it would look really bad for the temple, Lance. This is a big city and news that the temple wasn’t doing enough to help would get around quickly. It’s- I know now that you’re here we’ll figure it out soon enough but it caught me off guard.”

Lance hums in understanding, watching as Kolivan emerges from the warehouse with the demon door along with two of the guards carrying the now stained and bloody roll of canvas between them. He thinks of Kolivan’s line of questioning before. Something about a phobia. He turns to Hunk again, opens his mouth to ask him what had gotten to him so badly, but Hunk beats him to it.

“We’re going to take him to the temple,” Hunk says. His eyes trail after the canvas, his eyes deep and sad. “We’ll have to do rites for an unknown body but it’s the least we can do. I don’t know, I think that’s what got to me so badly. I’m really bad with blood and gore: it always leaves me light headed even when I’m expecting it. But when I realized what he was- Gods, Lance, I just started thinking about where he could have come from and what could’ve happened to him and my mind really got away from me.”

“It’s okay Hunk,” Lance says. He mirrors what Kolivan did to him before. He sets his hand between Hunk’s shoulders and presses him lightly ahead of him, leaving the last guard behind at the warehouse door. “We have a few hours until we have to take up the watch again. Let’s do what we can for this guy and clear our heads.”


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good. Lord. So much for weekly updates. I'm really sorry about this wait (it's more than a month late omfg) I've had company over for the past couple of weeks and between lots of working and family obligations I've been having a hard time finding well, time, to write this out. Thanks for being so patient everyone!

Lance’s hair is still damp from his bath when they make their way back from the temple to the warehouse where the demon door resides. It’s only been a couple hours since they left; long enough to put together a small funeral pyre in one of the temple’s tiny rock gardens and say a prayer for the flayed man. Hunk was still sniffling and teary eyed but Lance just wanted to spit. Partly because the smell of singed flesh was still sticking to the back of his tongue. Mostly because facing that door again leaves a sickening, sinking feeling in his stomach. 

He can’t deny it. They got lucky with the flayed man. Not lucky for the victim of course, but he wasn’t going to be attacking them any time soon. He was upsetting to look at and Hunk was pretty shaken up over him, but he wasn’t something that was going to give them more than nightmares. The door had given them an easy one to start off with. 

Lance quietly thanks Blaytz for the luck as Kolivan greets the guards at the door and reminds them to stay well away from the door while the three of them are inside. It’s rather anticlimactic, despite the anxious knot in his belly. Kolivan leads them in, takes his place on the far side of the room and settles in again. 

Another watch starts.

* * *

 

Twelve hours later Lance gives a wide yawn. The trepidation he’d felt coming in had long since melted away. It’s too hard to stay scared, even with the door right there, when nothing is happening. Even the most cautious can’t keep up long hours of complete vigilance. Kolivan is giving a valiant effort though, considering the hard look he gives Lance when he stands and creeps closer to the door. 

“Be careful,” Kolivan warns lowly. Lance shrugs, circling around the door while still leaving himself a bit of leeway, just in case. He’s been looking at this door for two days now but he’s yet to take a deep look into the details. 

Whoever had forged the thing, if it were in fact forged and not something that sprung fully formed from the ether, must have dedicated it to his life’s work. It stood about eight feet high and wide enough that even Kolivan could pass through it easily if he chose to. It was made out of a black metal. Iron, probably, was what Kolivan had told him. And it was absolutely covered in decoration. 

The largest and most obvious was the textured circle right around eye height on either side of the door’s mirrored design. Below that was what looked like an odd triangle. It was slightly uneven and lacked the bottom line that closed the shape, as well as an strange, angular lump high up on one side. 

He and Hunk had been making guesses at it what it could mean over the past couple of days. Hunk thought it looked like, ‘Well, a funny looking circle on top of a funny looking triangle, Lance. I’m not an artist.’ Lance had pressed him for something better and had gotten a wedge of pita bread and a bowl of fresh hummus. 

Lance thought it looked like a full moon over a mountain. Though he had no guesses on what the odd shape on the side of the triangle could mean. But when he’d said as much, Kolivan had merely glared at him and refused to offer his own guess. 

The rest of the door was covered in intricate scenes of disaster. Along the bottom of the wall are descriptions of war, a hundred tiny, alien looking people armed with spears and sabers and arrows tearing into each other with frightening attention to detail.

Above that are scenes that are less clear. Lance thinks it’s a depiction of a famine, or a plague. Bodies lay prone and walking among them are tall, hunchbacked figures wearing long flowing robes and pointed masks looking almost like birds. They hold their hands out over the bodies and squiggly arcs of… energy? Magic? Come out of their hands. Maybe it’s just a fancy artist’s rendition of souls leaving the sick. 

Even further up, surrounding the moon shape, are more of the robed figures. They stand in patterns, arms up and more of that odd energy surrounding their hands, as well as the air around them.

Lance steps closer, squinting into the shapes the arcs make in the spaces between the robed figures. At first it looks like a random net of energy but slowly a form takes shape. Sharp lines, triangular shapes, three sharp prongs. Lance’s mouth drops open. He whips his head to Kolivan, who tenses, instantly suspicious. 

“Come look at this,” Lance says. Behind him he hears Hunk make a curious sound and both he and Kolivan stand. Hunk hangs back almost ten feet, but Kolivan presses in close enough that they’re nearly touching as he looks over Lance’s shoulder. 

“What do you see there?” Lance asks. He reaches up, pointing to the net of energy etched into the door. “It looks familiar, doesn’t it?” Kolivan leans in, his chest bumping Lance’s shoulder. 

“I suppose it does,” Kolivan says. Behind them, Lance hears Hunk creep closer, and glancing back he finds the acolyte trying to nervously peer at the door. Kolivan adds: “It looks like the mark on the flayed man yesterday.” 

“Oh no,” Hunk breathes. “It’s a curse-” 

“I doubt it,” Lance says. It’s a gut feeling. He steps closer, lets his fingers brush across the tangle of energy and the hidden symbol within. “But it seems like it might be a clue—”

The door unlocks with a heavy click. Lance hardly has time to jerk his hand away before it swings open and away from them. Harsh, red sunlight spills over them, burning hot. The light shimmers and shifts and, blinking through the aching brightness Lance gasps. The space beyond the door itself is moving, rippling as if it’s a pond seconds after a heavy stone has been thrown into it. The effect is dizzying nearly to the point of sickness. 

They’re looking into a castle courtyard. Close cut grass so dark it seems black, tall dark walls enclose the entire space in the door’s view. They reach up into a deep red alien sky, cutting the massive setting sun into a sharp semicircle. Banners hang from the walls and from two rows of poles lining either side of the door, hanging limp and heavy in the windless courtyard. Deep red background and in the center, the same symbol branded into the flayed skin, the very same shape Lance was convinced he’d just seen etched into the door. 

“What-” Hunk starts as he saunters up behind them. Lance’s skin breaks out in goosebumps.  _ What was this place?  _ “What are they doing?”

Movement in the center of the door’s view. They’re difficult to see in the shadow of the wall, but they’re definitely there. Tall, lanky figures, just a little too alien to be fully human. But Lance has seen that shape before. It’s familiar because he’s been traveling with someone built exactly like that for weeks. 

_ Galra.  _

The hair on the back of Lance’s neck stands on end. What were Galra doing on the other side of the door? In another plane? First one, then a second, and more and more turn towards them. Lance sees their mouths moving as they speak to each other, some harsh, grating language that he can barely hear over the distance. 

One of the Galra leaves the cluster and starts towards the door, then another, and a few more after them all creeping closer to the door. Closer to  _ him _ . Lance flinches back, bumping into Kolivan behind him. He shudders as a clawed hand grabs his upper arm to steady him. Kolivan rumbles something, but it’s far away and faint: his eyes are trained on what’s beyond the door. As more Galra leave, their clustered circle breaks apart and Lance finally sees what they had gathered around. 

An alter soaked with blood and lit by twin braziers lit with sickly purple flame. Their sacrifice is so mutilated Lance can’t tell what it was, because now it’s little more than scattered chunks of flesh. And at the head of the alter, between the two braziers stands a masked robed figure. The same robes marked on the door as well. The figure stares him down and Lance can  _ feel  _ its gaze over a hundred feet, through the door, from another plane of existence altogether. It burrows under his skin, deep into his mind, his  _ soul.  _

His stomach turns. He jerks back again, flinching away from the invasive stare of the person in robes. Kolivan grabs him hard, claws digging in and Lance coughs, swallows the bile rising in his throat.

The Galra are coming closer to the door, their curiosity fading into thinly veiled aggression. The lead, a hulking woman with her hair shorn short on the side calls out to them in her sharp langage, motioning with one hand. It holds a dagger, gleaming silver in the alien light and stained with bright, fresh blood. 

She’s within ten feet when Kolivan tenses suddenly. He growls low in his throat and shoves Lance aside into Hunk so he can jerk his blade from its sheath. 

The door slams shut with a thundering, metallic bang. 

Lance’s mind wheels. He stumbles back into Hunk, dazed by the booming sound and the acolyte barely catches him before he falls. His throat burns and after several seconds he realizes it’s because he’s hyperventilating. His throat is tight with panic. The door is closed but a Galra is still there, blade drawn and glowing purple in the dim room. He turns towards them and Lance flinches back on reflex, pushing into Hunk. 

“It’s okay Lance,” Hunk huffs, pushing Lance upright. But it’s not. Those Galra made a sacrifice. And tore it to shreds. Why? Whatever deity demanded sacrifices mutilated like that had to be evil. Whatever granted them that power to peer into other planes, to touch him like that with a simple gaze through the unknowable expanses between existences had to be evil, unnaturally and fearfully powerful.  _ Those  _ Galra, on the other side of the door were evil. 

So what did that say about Kolivan? About himself? What was the difference in who they followed?

He meets Kolivan’s eyes. In the barest second, he knows Kolivan can read everything that’s on his mind. He sets his jaw, yellow eyes narrowing to near slits before he looks away and back at the door. 

“Get out,” he snaps. Lance tenses to argue, but Hunk merely mutters an agreement and pulls Lance out of the warehouse. Lance is too dazed to put up much of a fight as he’s tugged into the cool night air outside. 


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No rest for the weary.

**** “Lance,” Hunk starts again as he enters the room. His arms are piled high with extra blankets. It would be amusing if Lance didn’t feel so bad. “I really think you should talk to him about it.” Lance, curled up in a borrowed bedroll in Hunk’s room, sighs heavily and pulls his blanket up to his nose. He should. He knew he should but he really, really didn’t want to. He’s not used to fighting with people. It was in his nature to stew when he was hurt, but he always had someone to pull him out of his own head. Either his family when he was at home or Coran after he joined as an acolyte of the Water Temple. 

Hunk had been doing his best to attempt the same for the past couple of hours. Ever since Kolivan had sent them back ahead of him, but it wasn’t working. Hunk wasn’t the person he had an issue with. It was Kolivan. 

He wasn’t mad at Kolivan. But he’d made Kolivan angry with him. Honestly, it hurt. He wasn’t perfect and he knew he frustrated Kolivan on occasion, but never to the point where Kolivan demanded that he outright  _ leave _ . Kolivan had pushed him away from the door, from their task, and it left Lance with the nagging feeling that he was being a hindrance. 

But what was he supposed to do? He’d totally lost sight of himself when he peered through the door. Those were  _ Galra  _ on another plane.  _ Galra  _ who had made that blood sacrifice, who ripped whatever being on the altar to pieces. He shudders. It wasn’t… right, and it filled his mind with questions. Why were they there? Who were they? What drove them to make a blood sacrifice, especially in such a brutal manner? What god did they follow that demanded that? 

What did it mean, that there were at least two worlds with Galra, and that they were so different from each other? 

Up until now Lance had only thought that the Galra were hunters molded by the Moon Goddess for the sole purpose of hunting demons and ridding this world of evil. The Galra here had a distinct purpose. As odd as it sounded, they weren’t  _ natural _ , but they weren’t evil either. So was it the same for the Galra on another plane? 

He sulks. Hunk spreads another blanket atop him. Outside, far in the distance thunder rumbles. Lance wonders if Kolivan has made his way back to the temple yet. Probably, right? He wouldn’t try to stay in the warehouse on his own. He would have no reason to now, it had been too soon since the door had opened last time. Hunk pats his shoulder. 

“Okay, so if you won’t talk to him, will you talk to me? I mean, I feel bad with you just moping here.” Hunk says. He pushes his own bedroll closer and stretches out in it with a tired huff. “You guys seemed to get along really well. What’s wrong now?”

“I think he’s mad at me because… I don’t know. When I saw those other Galra, and what they were doing. I got scared,” Lance says. He deflates a little. He’s certainly been in more dangerous situations in the past couple of months than he was in yesterday. It had just caught him so off guard. Raised so many big questions in his mind he couldn’t process it fast enough. 

“You weren’t scared of  _ him,  _ were you?” Hunk asks. “You were pretty worked up back there.” Lance hums and he doesn’t answer because the truth was, for a moment, he  _ had  _ been scared of him. He doesn’t know how to explain it. In his panic, he seemed to think that one of the Galra had come through the door and in an instant Kolivan was no longer a mentor, a protector, but rather someone strange and dangerous. 

Kolivan must have picked up on that. Lance buries his face in his blankets and groans. He needs to apologize. “I’ll talk to him later Hunk, but right now I just want to not think about it.” Hunk hums and stretches out beside him. 

“Okay buddy. Let’s look for him at breakfast.”

* * *

 

“What do you mean he’s gone?” Lance asks. It’s early the next morning and even though the sun should just be coming up this time of morning, the kitchen is dark enough that the cooks are all working purely by lantern light and the fire raging in the hearth. The rain pounding outside fills the temple with a quiet roar. 

“I mean exactly what I said,” the cook, an older woman giving both him and Hunk stern looks in turn. “Your Galra friend came in here a few hours ago, asked me for a bit of bread and then went on his way. I don’t know where he went and I didn’t bother asking him. I figured he would be going to the warehouse that crazy door is in and I figured you would be going with him, but I suppose I was wrong.” 

Hunk cringes. “Nana, please, we’re sorry. Thank you for your time.” Lance hardly hears him, because he’s already turned and started out.

* * *

 

The two of them make their way across town to the warehouse district. Across the street from the possessed buildings, huddled under and awning, are the three usual guards that keep an eye on the door when Lance and Kolivan aren’t doing their watches. Zaban, the large blacksmith, is with them, pacing back and forth across the street through in front of the others and hollering so fiercely Lance hears him over the rumble of thunder.   
  
“You cowards! You know better than anyone else how dangerous that damn door can be. How  can you three just stand there while the hunter goes in by himself?” Zaban growls. Lance’s blood chills. He picks up his pace, closing the distance at a jog with Hunk close behind him. Zaban catches sight of them out of the corner of his eye and relaxes somewhat, though he’s still tense and obviously itching for a fight. Lance can hardly open his mouth to ask before Zaban’s answering him. 

“Your friend insisted on going in there and doing a watch by himself and these chucklefucks went ahead and let him!” he sweeps his arm towards the warehouse door. “They even locked it behind him! They won’t let me in. Kid, you’ve got to do something before your friend gets himself killed. He-” 

“Give me the key,” Lance demands, turning on the guards. Fumbling, one hands his over. “How long has he been in there?” The guards look towards each other.

“A couple hours? He seemed pretty serious, told us you two had decided to try if the door behaved any differently with only one person in the room. Told us to lock it behind him just in cas-” 

The door to the warehouse rattles so violently the entire group flinches. Lance dashes across the street, grabbing the padlock holding the doors shut and struggling to fit the key in the lock when the entire thing bumps and shudders in his hand. On the other side something snarls wetly, a deep hiss that makes Lance’s skin crawl. He jams the key in, twists it, and no sooner has he unhooked the padlock from the chain than the door shutters and pulls the looped chain taut. 

Lacking his dagger, Lance leaps back from the door and pulls an arrow from his quiver. He holds it tight just below the arrowhead. Behind him he faintly hears Hunk ask for a weapon from the guards. Lance takes a wary step in again. He hears a low, pained grunt from the other side. His heart lurches and he gives the chain a tug, untangling it.

The warehouse door shutters open the instant the chain is free. Lance barely manages to avoid being hit by a writhing mass. An alien form falls to the slick cobblestone with a gutteral screech. The rain pelts the being, pattering into the blood staining all along its torso. It squirms, it’s too huge mouth yawning wide in a chilling cry. A hundred needle teeth gnash together in pain. Lance stutter steps away as it claws at the stones and turns itself over onto all fours, crouched like and animal ready to pounce. Lance regrets bringing an arrow as his only weapon as a second mouth opens, spanning the width of the monsters’ throat and lined with another set of needlepoint teeth. It gasps, swallows and when both open again, two feet of long, slimy tongue lolls out of its gaping throat. 

“Son of a bitch!” Zaban cries from across the street. The demon whips around towards the guards, mouths hanging open and eyeless face turning back and forth. Trying to locate its prey. Hunk, standing a few feet in front of the other guards, goes pale. He clutches a small blacksmith’s hammer in his hand. 

“What is that thing?” a guard calls. Hunk doesn’t speak. Wide eyed, he lifts the hammer over his shoulder and whips his arm forward, throwing the hammer overhand. It spins through the air to crack the over the temple. It reels, snarling, and turns its attention firmly on Hunk. It tenses to pounce.  

Lance is faster. He leaps forward on instinct with a sharp cry, breaking the demon’s attention. He falls more than lunges on the demon, jamming the arrowhead hard as he can into the back of its neck. Black blood wells up around his fingers and dribbles hot and stinging over his hand. The demon jerks away, kicking Lance off but not before the arrowhead carves a deep gash into his back and drawing more blood. 

Lance lands hard on his back. His chest seizes up as a thin clawed hand pushes the air out of him as the demon lays its full weight on him. It snarls and Lance’s entire view is nothing but teeth. Spittle drips warm and viscous on his face. Lance gags and tries to jab the arrowhead in in again but his fingers slip in the blood and rain and he cuts himself on the sharp edges before his grip fails entirely and he drops the arrow to the stone street.

He blinks the water from his eyes, hands slipping on the demons wet skin. He gasps. His arms ache trying to push the thing off him, hands splayed on its chest as two gaping maws snap towards his face. His strength is about to give out-

The demon is blasted aside into the middle of the street. It gurgles out of Lance’s view as he struggles to catch his breath. Water splashes to his right, in the doorway to the warehouse. Purple energy cuts through the air a few feet above him. It sizzles an arc of steam through the rain. The demon screeches in pain and another arc of energy comes through and hits it again before it can recover. Lance pushes up onto his arms and Kolivan steps into view, canines bared in a vengeful snarl. He’s pale, his hand shaking on the hilt of his blade. Blood spatters his robes, a mix of the demon’s black and his own deep red. He glances down at Lance with a pinched, stern expression. He steps over him and towards the whimpering demon. 

Lance, still aching, rolls to his feet. He shrugs his bow off his back with another arrow, his magic already chilling his fingertips and forming a sheen of frost through the rainwater soaking the shaft. He pulls back, his throat and chest burning in the half second he needs to hold his breath to aim and loose a magic laced arrow. He nails it in the hollow of its throat, just below its second mouth. It screeches, gurgling as its long tongue curls around the arrow jutting from its flesh. The guards draw their blades and start to move in once they see it’s injured. Hunk backs away to take a spare from one of them. 

Kolivan doesn’t give any of them a proper chance to help. While the demon is still steadying itself, Kolivan’s blade glows with a bright purple light. He swings it down with a furious grunt. The sword sinks into the demon’s head to the bridge of it’s flat nose. It instantly goes limp and quiet. Lance nearly drops his second arrow realizing how quick it ended.

The guards pull to a hard stop. They stand just out of arm’s reach of Kolivan, weapons still held up warily. Kolivan plants his foot in the demons wounded chest and kicks it off his sword. It comes off with a wet squelch. It flops onto its back, its head cracked open and black brain matter flowing onto the stones. Kolivan stands over it. Lance steps closer, concerned.

“Kolivan…?”

Kolvian hacks into the demon again. And again. And again. He’s using none of the skill and finesse Lance is so used to seeing. He’s only cutting into the demon to hurt it, to mangle it beyond recognition. Lance’s stomach turns at the gore, but his heart aches with worry. He glances to the guards, all watching wide eyed with shock. Hunk looks near to fainting. Lance closes in, finds himself hesitating. Almost, almost scared of Kolivan’s fury. 

“Kolivan-” he says softly, only loud enough to be heard over the rain. Kolivan swings down a final time, the blade lodging between exposed ribs. Lance sets a hand on his back. He’s cold through his soaked robes, his muscles knotted and tense with whatever’s pent up in him. But he doesn’t move, only pants hard as he stares down at the mutilated demon. “Let’s… let’s go back to the temple, okay?”

Kolivan silently tugs his blade free and turns in the direction of the temple. Hunk steps in before Lance can follow, sidestepping the seeping gore.

“We’ll uh, clean up here so don’t worry. And we’ll keep it away from the temple. Should we burn it or…” Hunk pauses, shooting a worried glance to Kolivan’s retreating form. Lance looks down at the mangled demon, stomach turning. 

“Burn it. I think he already knew what it was. There’s no sense in making him deal with it any more than he already has,” Lance says. He heaves a sigh. “Thank you, too. I’ll… I’ll catch up with you later,” he says and starts jogging after Kolivan. 


	24. Chapter 24

Acolytes are already waiting for them when he and Hunk step into the main chambers of the Earth temple. He’s dripping wet, shivering with cold and an adrenaline crash. Their arms are filled with towels and one is working her way across the floor with a mop cleaning up a trail of bloody droplets. Hunk gives a sheepish grin, the acolytes merely look uncomfortable. 

“Kolivan was just here a few minutes ago,” Nana, the older woman who had told Lance Kolivan had wandered off on his own just a couple hours ago, says. She wrings her hands uncomfortably. “We went ahead and drew baths for the both of you. He should be in there already if you’re looking for him.” Lance gives a shaky smile, all too aware that he’s dripping on the tile floor as they’re trying to clean it up. 

“Thanks. A bath actually sounds  _ really  _ good right now,” he says. Beside him, Hunk takes a towel from another acolyte and pats his face dry. 

“Well, I’ll let you go ahead and uh… you know, see if he’s alright. Because I-” Hunk says. “Am going to help make lunch and try to forget a lot of what just happened.” To his own surprise, Lance laughs. 

“That sounds like a plan,” he says and he sets off down the hall, his legs feeling tired and rubbery.

* * *

 

He stops first by the bedroom he shares with Kolivan and finds it empty. He gets himself a towel and a change of clothes. Kolivan’s bag is undisturbed atop his tightly packed bedroll. Did he even stop in and pick up a change of clothes? To be safe, Lance gathers some for him before he heads down the hall to the baths. 

He hears a soft splash as he pulls the door closed behind him. The room is dim, deeply shadowed by light thrown off by the lanterns set in the wall. The storm still rages outside.The bath is situated in such a way that the tub, a large stone basin cut into the floor, is blocked by a screen when one enters the room. On Lance’s side of the screen a stone bench extends out of the wall itself, as the whole room is designed to be sleek and easy to clean. As he’d suspected, Kolivan must have come directly in here, as the bench is empty except for a towel and Kolivan’s wet, bloodied clothes. Lance sets his and Kolivan’s things on the bench and starts to undress. 

“Lance?” Kolivan calls when Lance is setting the last of his damp clothes with Kolivan’s. He pads around the screen to find Kolivan slumped into the steaming water up to his shoulders. He gives Lance a tired, half lidded glance and sinks a little deeper, his hair wadded up in a messy bun at the nape of his neck. 

“Yeah, it’s me,” Lance says. He steps into the tub beside Kolivan. The water’s hot enough to sting his skin for a second as he settles in, but it quickly becomes soothing as he adjusts to the heat. He takes long enough to wet his hair and slick it back from his face before he lets the water lap up to his throat and leans his head on the lip of the tub, looking up through the windows set high up in the opposite wall, the sky almost black in contrast to the lanterns lighting the room. 

“I’m sorry,” Kolivan says. Lance glances at him out of the corner of his eye. Kolivan stares ahead of them, through the dark windows as lightning flashes and the room echoes with a peal of distant thunder. His chest rises and falls. A slow, deep breath. “For everything.”

Lance gives a weak smile. “It’s okay. It’s been… a lot.” They sit there in companionable silence for a couple minutes. Lance starts to slake soap and water over his skin. New bruises are forming on his chest where the demon had set atop him. Finally, Lance gives up on Kolivan explaining anything and turns to him. 

“Kolivan? Are you… gonna be okay?” he asks. Kolivan closes his eyes, brow furrowed a little deeper. Thinking. 

“I will be,” he says. “It’s… it’s your wants and fears Lance.” Lance sits up and sends water sloshing over the edge. 

“What?” 

“That’s what the door is showing us. Our wants and fears,” Kolivan says. He lifts one hand out of the water, tapping his fingers on his bent knee as he counts. “The flayed man was a fear. Remember how sick Hunk got just looking at it? It bothered everyone but he was truly shaken up. The luxite was Zaban’s want. He asked for something to work with. Something nobody else had and the door gave him raw luxite.” Then, Kolivan pauses. He frowns. 

“The demon we saw this morning was a fear of yours, wasn’t it,” Lance prods gently. Kolivan stares hard into the water. The water reflects golden prisms of lantern light and the room is filled with the quiet roar of the rain outside. Suddenly, Kolivan’s eyes harden, filled with a muted hurt and rage. 

“You know I became leader of the Moon Temple just before I met you. That demon… it killed my predecessor, Ulaz.” His voice quiets, barely audible. Lance stares. He’s too aware that he’s seeing a side to Kolivan that’s usually hidden behind his gruff facade. A man with convictions. Friends he’s willing to die for. Someone who nurses the wounds to his soul for far long than the ones that leaves scars on his skin. “He was a very dear friend of mine. I killed it the first time. Seeing it again… hurt. More than I expected.” Kolivan growls. “I’m sorr-” 

“It’s okay, Kolivan.” Lance says. “You did what you had to. I was really worried about you because I’d never seen you so stressed out before but that… that makes sense. I don’t know what I would do in your place. Ulaz… Ulaz sounds like he was good guy.” Kolivan huffs laughter. 

“He was. I was going to apologize for yesterday. For sending you back without warning like I did. I just- I was thinking about Ulaz then too,” he admits. He won’t look at Lance, and it’s almost endearing to see him flustered as he speaks his feelings. “You seemed so… shocked about the door. I started getting worried you would panic and I wanted to get you out of there, but I couldn’t just abandon the door either.” Lance smiles. 

“Why didn’t you just say that yesterday? I was moping in Hunk’s room all night because I thought you were mad at me for not being super cool about just, you know, not only seeing another plane but realizing there are Galra over there too. I mean,” Lance says, shrugging. “I guess I’m okay about it now. I’m more curious than anything because I have like a  _ hundred  _ questions about them and what they’re doing over there and why they’re Galra, of all things. But I would think I’m more scared of that demon we fought this morning than anything I saw yesterday.” 

“I… also thought you were angry with me. I didn’t want to argue with you, and I thought I would let you cool off,” Kolivan says. Lance laughs fully now. Kolivan sits up, narrowing his eyes on him. 

“Then why did you leave by yourself this morning? I would have gone with you even if i were still mad. It’s dangerous to go alone.”

“I had a hunch about the door,” Kolivan shrugs. “I had to be alone to know if it’s really a want or a fear it would give me, since I know what I would want and what, uh, scares me.” Lance huffs. He stands from the bath. Kolivan politely looks away while he steps out and wraps a towel around himself. 

“You’re the stupidest man I’ve ever met,” Lance says, lacking heat. “I still would have gone with you. Not saying I’m the most skilled person ever but like, I would have been more help waiting for you across the street than those guards were. At least I can use magic.” Kolivan glances over his shoulder, sees Lance covered and shakes his head in apology. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. Lance rolls his eyes. 

“No problem. I’m over it, I’m sure you’re over it. I’m just glad we’re both okay,” Lance says. He retreats behind the screen and starts to dress. Kolivan splashes water as he bathes. 

“Kolivan?” Lance asks. The splashing stops and Kolivan answers with a curious hum. “I think you’re on to something with the wants and fears. All I was thinking about when it opened for me was what those decorations on the door meant, and what happened to the flayed man. Now that you mention it, I think it was showing me what I wanted. I just… didn’t like the answer.” Again, another deep hum from Kolivan as he thinks. Lance hears him stand, sees the faint outline of his form shadowed in the lantern light. 

“Then I suppose we just have to figure out how to make it spit up whatever will make it go away.”


	25. Chapter 25

It’s been a long time since Lance slept in. Of course, being more of less nocturnal now means it’s still dark when he wakes. But Kolivan is already up, reading from a small book by candlelight. He’s still in his sleeping clothes, his pants loose and his shirt carelessly left open to mid chest. This is the first time Lance remembers Kolivan waking up and not immediately getting ready for the day. 

Lance groans softly and pulls his blanket up to his nose. Kolivan glances to him. Crickets chirp outside, slow and melancholy, in the humid, slightly chilled air. Lance mumbles a sleepy greeting and closes his eyes. He doesn’t know how long he lays there, hovering somewhere between wakefulness and sleep. It reminds him of when he was a child, in the time before he left home to become an acolyte of the water temple. Of those rare days when his parents would let him and his siblings sleep in til sunrise before they had to get up and start on their chores. 

“Is there no rush today?” Lance asks, his voice muffled slightly under his blanket. With effort, he forces himself to open his eyes because he’s drifting dangerously close back to sleep. Kolivan hums and flips a page. 

“A little, but with what we’re going to try today, I thought it would be best if we were more relaxed. To manipulate the door it’s important that we have clear minds.”

Lance kicks the blankets off himself and rolls onto his back. “That why you’re reading? And why you let me sleep?” 

“Sleep is its own form of meditation,” Kolivan says. Lance stretches. 

“I hope breakfast counts as meditation too,” Lance sighs as he picks himself up. Kolivan shuts his book and moves to stand as well, but pauses long enough to tighten his robe. 

“I suppose so. We need to do something to relax Hunk anyways, and we have some time to kill,” he says. 

“I thought you said we were in a bit of a rush today?” Lance asks. 

“We are, but we have one more stop to make before we go to the door and I don’t want to wake them up too early if we don’t strictly have too,” Kolivan says. Lance follows him out into the hall closely, but no matter how he asks, Kolivan won’t divulge any more.

* * *

 

“Okay, I had a really good time making you guys breakfast and you liked that experiment with the apricots,” Hunk mutters to himself. They’re walking through the streets of Aureolin. Though it’s just past sunrise, most avenues are already well populated by merchants setting up their stalls for the day and customers up especially early to snag the best of the goods. Hunk’s wringing an old and worn piece of cloth in his hands, so bleached by sunlight the floral pattern is hardly visible anymore. At breakfast Kolivan had reiterated how important a clear mind was today: if the demon door reacted to wants and fears and they only wanted a  _ very  _ specific thing from it, then they would have to give it as little to work off of as they could. 

Hunk had clearly fretted over breakfast for a few minutes, but before he sat down to join them he’d disappeared and come back with this piece of cloth. A scrap from his grandmother’s apron he kept tucked safely in a box in his room. Seeing it, Kolivan had purred and announced it a good idea. 

Which brings them to now, with Lance wondering what Hunk’s grandmother’s apron had anything to do handling the demon door and why they weren’t headed directly there in the first place. Kolivan seems almost intent on meandering to spite him, heading in the general direction of the warehouse district before veering off on a sharp left and heading down a less populated street. Lance doesn’t realize where they’re going until he sees the bright blaze of a forge and smells the acrid tang of hot metal. 

“Kolivan, seriously, what are we doing,” Lance says with more pressure. Kolivan glances down at him and knocks on the door to Zaban’s smithery. 

“Be patient,” he says without any heat. “We’re just picking something up.” Zaban calls them in. 

Lance begins to sweat as he steps inside. The place is sweltering, even though Zaban’s forge is outside on the building’s back porch. It casts the huge man's’ shadow back through the dim house and Lance watches Zaban stoke his forge’s fire before he stands to greet them as they step through the open back door and onto the porch. He clasps Kolivan’s forearm, then Lance’s, and shakes Hunk’s hand. 

“You have it?” Kolivan asks. Lance peers around suspiciously. Kolivan almost seems… excited?

Zaban’s chest puffs up in pride as he takes a short, slim package wrapped in soft leather off the table beside him. “I sure do. Son of a bitch was a challenge to work with but putting on those finishing touches late last night,” Zaban whistles. “Haven’t been so excited for a project in  _ years _ . Here.” 

He sets the package in Lance’s hands. 

“Okay? What…” Lance starts. He looks at Kolivan, who motions to the package. 

“It’s yours. I was hoping it would help today,” he says. Lance turns it over in his hands. It’s surprisingly weighty for its size. Lance carefully unwraps the leather and his heart jumps into his throat at the dark steel handle wrapped in black leather leading into a deep black blade. 

“O-oh…” Lance breathes, pulling the leather off and setting it aside. He wraps his hand around the handle and the straight crossguard rests perfectly against his fingers. The steel is undecorated but polished to an almost silky smoothness. A line of softly waved blue energy lights up down the center of the blade. “So this is what you did with the luxite.” 

He looks up at Kolivan, then Zaban, then back to the blade. His chest feels too tight, but in a good way. He’s never been one for gifts: his family was far to numerous and rural to really afford anything but the smallest. But he’s pretty sure this is the most expensive thing he’s ever  _ touched  _ must less owned himself. 

“I… I don’t know what to say. Uh, thanks. Wow…” he breathes. Anything more is beyond him. 

“You needed your own blade. I… Lance, you’re clearly cut out for this and I felt like… the door giving us luxite now was a sign that shouldn’t be ignored.” Kolivan shifts uncomfortably and Zaban laughs at how obvious it is that Kolivan isn’t used to dealing with either gift giving or this kind of gratitude. Kolivan tugs a smaller coinpurse off his belt and holds it out. Zaban takes it, but only takes a few pieces out before he tries to give it back. Kolivan grunts in protest. 

“For giving a commission on luxite, and dealing with that goddamn door for us. If you really don’t want it, consider it a temple donation for Antok, alright?” Zaban says. “I’ll only take payment for this.” He takes up a belt off the table with a slim sheath attached and hands it to Lance. It’s more intricate than the blade itself, stitched through with motifs of waves and strange sea creatures. “Got kind of creative with it. Kolivan said you used to be an acolyte from the temple in Watchet and I just kind of ran with the idea,” Zaban says, his grin showing through his thick beard. He’s almost giddy with pride. 

“Oh, Blaytz…” Lance says, looking over the belt before he secures it on and sheathes the dagger with reverence. “This is amazing.” 

“I know you’ll use it well,” Zaban hums. 

“Hopefully more than we think,” Kolivan says.

* * *

 

“This is a really nice replacement for that arrowhead I was using yesterday,” Lance says, resting his hand on the handle of his luxite blade. They’ve made their way into the demon door and have gotten themselves settled in along with the door. It’s been hardly an hour, but despite everything it’s given them Lance is feeling… surprisingly good. And with the conversation going even Hunk seems more or less relaxed, even though he still clutches the scrap of apron in his hand. 

“Today, it’s more than that,” Kolivan says, settling into his now usual corner, his own blade drawn and resting across his knees. “It’s something called a focus. Something to center your mind, yourself, around in times of stress. Mine is this, because it represents what I am and what I’m doing here,” he says, motioning with his blade. “Hunk’s is his apron scrap. It’s your family, and your past, right?” He asks. Hunk nods.

“Yeah. I have this thing and all I can think about are all the times I would spend with her, and with my parents. And like, you’re right. I’m still pretty nervous right now but when I look at the door,” Hunk says, doing exactly that. “It’s not nearly as bad as it has been the last few days.” Hunk laughs, giddy. “I can totally do this.” 

“It doesn’t have to be that new blade, Lance, because I know you don’t have a history with it yet. It could be your bow, or something in your pack or even just a strong memory or dream for the future. But as long as it’s something that means a lot to you, it will work,” Kolivan says. Lance gives a little chuckle, wrapping his fingers tight around the handle of his blade. He’s only had this for a couple hours, but it means more to him how far out of his way Kolivan went to get this to him than he thinks the old Galra knows. 

“Anything to keep me being scared, huh? Well, I think this blade works plenty well.” 

Seven hours into their watch, Lance is lingering by the door, swaying back and forth on the balls of his feet. Over the hours he feels like he’s memorized every detail in this massive door. He’s had nothing else to do. His hand remains on his blade, and it rarely strays. It’s a barrier between him and the door. It steels him, reminds him that he’s a hunter, a  _ Galra _ , even if he doesn’t quite look the part yet. Kolivan, someone so much more experienced and talented than him, someone he’s honestly come to look up to as a mentor and a surprisingly good... friend, has fully accepted him as a peer and that’s all that matters, who cares if he’s never actually been to the Moon Temple?

* * *

 

“So, uh, are you guys wondering what’s going to make this door go away? You think like a weapon? Some monster we have to kill? What if it just spits out a like a magic spell we have to read?” Hunk says. Lance gives him a slightly worried look thinking that Hunk is getting himself worked up, but the acolyte is smiling lightly, with a little shine in his eyes that says he’s okay. 

“It may not open at all,” Kolivan says. He motions in front of his eyes, opening and closing his fingers. “I’ve heard stories of these doors just… blinking out of existence. And that’s the end of it.” 

“Oh, come on, really?” Lance says. “Who told you that? It didn’t give any fight?” 

“Another Galra named Krolia, and yes, I believe her. She wouldn’t lie about this. It would hinder our knowledge of these things to have inaccurate accounts, and besides, it’s not an impressive for her if the door just lef-” 

The door clicks open. 

Lance jerks back, his blade drawn in a flash. Hunk yelps. Kolivan is beside him, putting himself in front of the gap of the door as it swings inward, away from them. 

Because someone has pulled it open. 

The space in the doorway shimmers like the surface of a pond moments after a stone’s been tossed through, like this man has pulled the door off the surface of reality itself. Neither move, both sides waiting for the rippling to calm to clear the view in the portal. The man is a little taller than Hunk. He’s Galra, with purple skin, yellow-blue eyes and long, long white hair. But he doesn’t carry himself with the same aggression as those they saw the other day. His expression is open with surprise, his guard clearly losing to his curiosity. 

He asks a question, but Lance can’t understand him. It sounds like a grating, harsh and alien language unlike anything Lance has heard before. Kolivan twitches his blade, on edge. “Who are you?” he asks. The man pauses, asks his own question and shakes his head. Does it mean no? That he can’t understand? Who could tell when it came from a man from another reality? 

“Lo - Tor,” the man says. He pats himself on the chest, motions up and down himself. “Lotor.” Then he goes on in his language and Lance can’t hope to understand him. 

“His name’s Lotor, I guess,” Hunk says. Then he pats his own chest. “Hunk!” He points to Lance and then Kolivan and introduces them in much the same way. Lotor repeats, pointing to each. He smiles. He lifts his hand and spreads his palm out. He lifts his brows. He wants to touch the portal. Lance shakes his head hard. Somehow he knows that will make the door close and they’ll have to start this all over again. “Hey uh, what do you have in the back there?” Hunk asks, pointing over Lotor’s shoulder. Kolivan tenses. 

Lance had been so engrossed in Lotor and trying to communicate with him that he hadn’t looked past him yet. Lotor seems to be in a large office. Shelves line all the walls except to make space for a massive desk that’s covered in papers, notes and small parts of metal that, as far as Lance can see through the shimmering portal, serve no purpose that he can discern. However, the room is filled with probably a hundred glowing stones in a handful of colors. They pulse with some kind of unseen power. On the desk there’s more stones, a handful resting inert but another is in some kind of upright capsule, energy arcing off of it like tiny lightning bolts. His eyes go wide. He motions to the space behind Lotor. 

“Kolivan, do you have any paper?” Lance asks. He sheathes his own blade and shrugs off his pack. He kneels and opens it, pulling out the two stones he has. Between the two of them they pulse, but only weakly and nothing like those Lotor has on the other side. Lotor makes a pleased sound and launches into another volley of questions. Hunk steps in and tries to both decipher and get his own questions in as Kolivan pulls a little roll of paper and a stick of charcoal out of his pack and gives them to Lance. 

“What are you doing?” Kolivan asks quietly, as if Lotor could understand him even if he could hear. Lance sets the stones aside, in Lotor’s sight since he’s clearly interested in them, and starts to write down a few basic things about himself and then his own questions. His name and age, the name of the Earth, and Aureolin. That he’s a demon hunter for a living.  _ Will you give us a stone? What are you using them for? Where did you get them? Who are you? Where are you from? Are you Galra? What is the door?  _

He has a million more questions but he’s run out of space. He gives Kolivan his charcoal back. Kolivan takes his hand instead and helps him up. “That won’t work,” he says. “You know the rules; different existences cannot communicate. The universe forbids it.” Lance gives him a flat look. 

“We’re talking to Lotor  _ now  _ aren’t we? We know his name is Lotor, we think. Remember the shadows in Reseda? We couldn’t even  _ see  _ them clearly. But now… Not only can we, but he’s got these rocks that keep showing up. They have to mean  _ something _ , right? I have a feeling about it. I don’t expect him to be able to read it, but who knows? Maybe this door is just making an exception to that rule for us. We don’t know until we try.” Kolivan sighs, defeated and having no good reason to stop him. He turns to Lotor and the man is motioning to the stones and then to his own. He seems to realize they are the same as well. 

Lance rolls up his paper and holds it up. Lotor perks up, curious. Lance picks up the blue stone and motions to Lotor, then the room behind him, and then to himself, mimicking that Lotor should give him one of his own. Lotor points to the paper in Lance’s hand and then to himself, which Lance takes as him wanting the paper as trade. 

Lance’s heart flutters as Lotor turns and takes a yellow stone off the shelf. There’s no hesitation, as if Lotor not only feels that a stone for a list of questions is a perfectly good trade and that he knows exactly which he wants to give. Perhaps Lotor was hungry for whatever Lance had written down. Maybe he realized that Lance wouldn’t be willing to give up one of his two when he had so many of his own already. Maybe these stones were commonplace on his side and giving one up as as easy as loaning someone book. Was this his least favorite, or divine intervention? Lotor takes the stone to the desk and starts to write on a piece of paper for nearly a minute. 

“Are you negotiating a trade with a Galra from another universe,” Hunk says. He’s leaning close as he dares without touching it, more interested in Lotor’s office than the fear he previously felt for the door. 

“I hope so,” Lance says. When Lotor returns with the stone and his own note Lance makes a tossing motion. He’s convinced that touching the portal will close the door, but perhaps if they toss it through at the same time, that will work? Lotor mimics him once, then they both toss their gifts. 

The yellow stone clatters to the warehouse floor an instant before the door groans and snaps shut hard enough to leave Lance’s ears ringing. He blinks. He can see the opposite wall. Hunk hesitates, then brushes his hands through the empty space where the door had been. 

“Oh, wow, that… really worked,” he says. He huffs, then chuckles, and the sound builds into a disbelieving laugh. “I was expecting that to be a lot harder.” Lance gathers up the three stones and cradles them in his hands. Their glowing is brighter now than before. But why? What does it mean?

“Did his note make it through?” Kolivan asks. He finds the paper a few seconds later and opens it up. His brow furrows, and he holds it down where Lance can read over his arm. Lance doesn’t know what he was expecting. The words are indecipherable, written in even, chunky letters. It’s formatted in a solid block, without punctuation. However, the note isn’t for nothing. Lotor’s left them a little doodle in the corner. A blocky rectangle with a much smaller, short square on top. Inside the bigger one is a crooked shape that looks like two connected triangles. Off of that, Lotor’s drawn an arrow to a lumpy shape. A stone, Lance supposes. 

“I think he was trying to tell us what these do, but I can’t tell what it means,” Lance huffs, frustrated. If he only knew what that rectangular object was meant to be. Kolivan folds it up and carefully stashes it in his wrap. 

“We’ll figure it out later. For now, let’s go tell everyone they’re free to use these warehouses again. I’m sure there are many who are hurting to get back to their goods.”

* * *

 

The rest of the evening goes easily. They return to the Earth Temple and share their news. Lance sits there at one of the long tables, sipping at his tea and listening to Hunk tell the third or fourth knot of people visiting the temple to celebrate in an hour about Lotor and he thinks this isn’t quite the end of this tale. It all fit too well together. The more he thinks on it the more he’s convinced that the door was placed there for the specific purpose of getting the yellow stone in his hand. But why? What’s he meant to do with it? There’s some vital gap in his understanding that nags at him. He itches to get moving again. 

Kolivan apparently feels the same way. A few hours after dark when Lance finds enough quiet to escape, Kolivan is lingering in the hallway in front of the door to their room, his pack on his shoulder. Lance doesn’t even have to ask. It’s time to go, to find the next crisis they’re meant to solve. 

They get as far as the temple’s front steps before Kolivan comes up short so quickly Lance stumbles into his back. He sputters. 

“What are you doing?” he asks. He looks around, hand straying to his weapon in case of danger. But all he sees is a cart at the bottom of the stairs and a tall Galra piling it high with crates and sacks. “Oh, do you know him?” Lance asks. They haven’t seen another hunter in weeks. “We should see what he’s up to. Maybe we can help.” Lance starts down a few steps but Kolivan doesn’t follow. Instead, he stares at the other Galra with a narrowed, confused expression. “You okay?” 

“Yeah,” Kolivan says. “I just… Pebkac went missing a few months ago. I thought he was dead.” 


	26. Chapter 26

Kolivan starts down the steps ahead of him, head held high but shoulders stiff and on guard. Lance’s isn’t quite sure what to make of it. He follows closely, his hand straying to the blade at his hip. 

“Pebkac?” Kolivan calls with only a slight hint of question. The Galra glances up, at first confused and then smiling. 

“Kolivan!” He tosses the sack he’s holding onto the cart and a puff of flour hits him in the chest. He coughs, patting the flour spot on his dark robe and flicking his wide, fuzzy ears. “I haven’t seen you in a long time. I heard you took care of a demon door from the acolytes here. Nice!”

“Nobody has heard from you in months. I was ready to declare you dead. Where were you?” Kolivan asks. 

Pebkac fumbles with the crate of apples he’s lifting. His brows nearly disappear into his unkempt hair. His facial markings, two dark lines leading from the inside corners of his eyes down either side of his mouth, twist with his frown. “How come? It hasn’t been  _ that  _ long, has it? I’ve just been…” Pebkac pauses, thought working behind his eyes like he can’t quite remember  _ where  _ he’s been. “Around. Oh. Well, I guess has been a while since Krolia and I split up… or since I’ve seen anyone else from the temple.” He shrugs. Kolivan grinds his teeth. 

“That’s it?” Kolivan asks. Pebkac grunts as he loads the crate, then lifts his hands in surrender.

“I’m sorry! But it seems like I can’t go two days without finding someone who needs help,” he says. “Krolia and I went all the way to the West Sea and I’ve been trying to make my way back all this time.”

Lance isn’t sure how true that is, but Pebkac’s experience sounds too familiar not to bring up. “We’ve noticed that too. It feels like we always have something to do. I’ve never even  _ been  _ to the Moon Temple yet. I’ve just been following Kolivan around since I met him and we’re still going.” Pebkac glances at him and grins, showing canines and seemingly entirely forgetting Kolivan’s frustration with him. 

“Krolia made it back to the temple more than a month ago. Said she didn’t know where you went. What happened?” Kolivan asks. 

“Not too long after we started getting really busy, I was headed back to the temple with her but we had to split up when two villages had problems with demons that couldn’t be put off one way or the other. I lost track of her then. I’m glad to hear she’s alright. I knew she would have been fine on her own,” Pebkac says. Lance can’t help but hear an almost self deprecating confidence in his voice that Krolia would have made it to the temple while he was still kicking around Aureolin months later. 

Kolivan sighs deep in his chest, barely audible. “Alright then, what are you doing now?” He descends the stairs and picks up a crate full of jars that smell faintly of pickling spices.

“I came into Aureolin this afternoon and took a nap.” Kolivan’s ear flicks. “Then the acolytes asked me if I would take a cart up to the Fire Temple. Apparently the trade between them went dead about a month ago and they’re getting worried about them. I guess they trade pretty frequently.”

Kolivan and Lance don’t have to consult with each other on the next move: this is too quick, too conspicuous to be passed up. Temples having trouble with a demon was one thing. A temple dropping communication altogether was far more concerning. Lance joins in on packing the cart.

* * *

 

“So your name is Lance?” Pebkac asks him. They’re nearly an hour on the road now. Pebkac sits at the front of the cart, the horse’s reins in his hand. Lance is beside him, swaying with the horse’s steps. “You must be new too.” 

“Well, yeah,” Lance says. He holds his hand out, palm down, in front of him. He thinks it might be his own imagination, but there’s already tinges of purple creeping up his wrist, softer than the rest, almost velvety. “I’m not even fully Galra yet. You haven’t been one long either though? Uh, Peb..kac?” Pebkac shakes his head.

“You can just call me Peb if you want. And no. I used to be a stable hand til a couple years ago. I met Krolia in the middle of one her assignments and just kind of got dragged into it.” He glances back at Kolivan, who’s walking alongside of the cart, gold eyes glowing in the lantern light as he looks out into the dark wilderness. “I’m surprised you’re hanging around with Koliv- Leader, though.” Peb’s ears dip. Kolivan had filled him in on events within the Moon Temple while he’d been gone, including Ulaz’s passing and his new status as leader. 

“How come? He’s nice enough once you get to know him,” Lance says. Peb shrugs. Ahead of them, the horse stutter steps, its ears pulling back, but continues on. Peb takes a few seconds to respond, slowly wrapping the reins around his hand. 

“I don’t know. I never got to spend too much time in the Moon Temple before I left with Krolia but it seemed like he had a reputation for not being real social. I never thought of him as someone who would take on a pupil,” Peb grins. “You must really be something.” 

Lance shrugs, shivering and tugging his sleeves further down over his hands. Behind them, Kolivan slows considerably and Lance, sensing the change in his footsteps glances back. Kolivan’s brow furrows, his breath forming soft puffs of mist around his mouth. 

Not unheard of for spring, but strange right now. It hasn’t been particularly cold lately and no storms have been moving in. Hell, it wasn’t cold twenty minutes ago. “You notice how cold it is?” Lance asks. 

“The horse did,” Peb says. “The Fire Temple is a ways up the base of Mount Alfor so I thought maybe it was something with wind patterns and landscape and stuff.” Lance squints. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Kolivan comes trotting up beside the cart, breath streaming behind him. 

“I think we should stop the cart for now,” he says. Neither Lance or Peb question him; Peb tugs on the reins and the horse slows to a stop, though its flanks shiver in the cold and its ears are pulled back nervously. Kolivan continues. “This cold isn’t natural, but I can’t figure out what it is yet, or if it’s going to get worse. We’re not going to make it to the Fire Temple tonight anyways. I don’t want to risk the horse getting spooked and hurting itself in the dark. We can make better time in the morning.” 

“I don’t have any problem with that,” Peb says. He hitches the reins to the cart and hops down. He pets the horse’s side, it flicks its tail. “Betty’s a good horse and there’s no sense in having her break a leg because we get in a rush.” 

“I was more thinking I didn’t want to push this cart myself,” Lance admits. He hops down as well, but Kolivan motions to the cart.

“We packed blankets in there. Go ahead and find them. I’ll look around for firewood while Pebkac gets the horse settled,” he says.

“Okay, but I can help. We’ve got a lantern with us and the moon is decent. It’ll only take me a few seconds to find the blankets,” Lance says. Kolivan gives him a sharp look. His ears pull back a little, and Lance senses that he’s more nervous than irritated. 

“Stay here.” He leaves no room for argument.

* * *

 

The cold deepens as the night drags on. Within an hour, Lance is wrapped up tight in one of the blankets. Deep into the early morning, he’s pulled out of sleep by numb fingers and stinging cheeks. He lays there in the soft grass on the side of the road, blanket pulled up across his nose. He wonders if he should try to find some space in the cart where he can be sheltered from wind gusts or if he should stay where he is, next to the fire. Ultimately he decides the fire is better and scoots a bit closer. 

“It’s snowing,” Kolivan says. Lance opens his eyes again, blinks. He pulls the blanket tighter around himself and sits up. Thin flurries of snow shift and dance in the wind, waving with each gust. 

“Holy crap,” Lance breathes. He shudders, chilled, and wraps his hands tighter in the blanket. “It was almost hot just the other day. There’s no way it should be snowing this time of year, right? Even with the mountain?” Kolivan hums. His eyes are trained out into the darkness, ears stiff and strained forward. Lance watches with him in silence. Seconds drag into minutes. Lance fidgets. The horse paws at the packed road and snorts, pulling at the cart and making the brakes groan. Lance shrugs off his blanket. 

“Kolivan?” he asks. Kolivan’s eyes cut towards him, then back out into the thin early darkness. 

“Wake up Pebkac and tell him to get the cart ready,” he stands, hand already dropping to the hilt of his sword. “Then come with me. There’s something out there.” 


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've written this chapter out like four times and I'm ready to post it omg. I already have a good chunk of the next chapter too. I'm still really excited about this entire last bit of this fic and thanks for being so patient waiting on me.

The lantern tethered to the bench beside Peb bounces with every step. Kolivan and Lance linger behind just out the bubble of light off the side of the road. Snow gusts around him, cold wind cutting through his clothes. He looks towards his blanket folded up in the cart. Kolivan glances to him, then back out into the darkness, ears straining. 

“It only would have slowed you down,” he says. Lance huffs, teeth chattering. 

“You’re such a hard ass,” Lance says. Kolivan looks out into the darkness ahead of them and starts slipping further out from the road without a word. Lance follows him at a trot. 

Kolivan comes to a hard stop. He stares out into the wilderness. Lance looks out after him, subtly moving so he can hide from the brunt of the wind behind Kolivan’s larger form. 

“Do you see anything?” Kolivan asks. Lance thinks it’s a pointless question. His hearing was better since going through the Galra shift, but his eyes were still how they always were. Terrible. He can’t see anything but the flickering reflections of snowflakes in the dimming lantern light as Peb leads the cart further down the trail. He doesn’t say anything.

“Me neither,” he says. Lance huffs.

“Then why did you-” Kolivan hushes him with a tap between his shoulders. 

“But I hear something. It’s out there,” he says, motioning out into the dark. “It’s moving away from us; I can barely hear it anymore. It would make sense if it were something small, but it sounds too large. Uneven footsteps. It makes no sense that I can’t see it.” 

Lance frowns, something nervous twisting in his chest. Kolivan’s muted anxiety eats at him and his mind unhelpfully supplies all the things that could be lurking out there. A bear is one of the less alarming options on the list.

“Come on,” he says finally. Dangerous or not, something itches under his skin and drives him on. He has to find out what’s out there if only to get the question out of his mind. 

They head directly out a few hundred feet, and at the crest of a gentle hill they find what they’re looking for. Tracks. Two hind paws shaped like dogs paws with clear pads and indents of claws. The forepaws however…

“Wow,” Lance says, skirting around the tracks. He channels his magic through his blade, chilling his arm to the bone but generating a soft blue light to see better by. Kolivan approaches from the other side, his own blade glowing purple. Both forepaws are larger than the hind. The right side larger than even Kolivan’s broad hand. It also has visible claw imprints but also long, distinct fingers, almost like human’s but shaped oddly. The left forepaw however, is truly monstrous. Twice the size of the right, three long fingers with claw marks that pierce through the thin layer of snow and even the soil underneath. 

“Must be why you thought it sounded like it was limping,” Lance says, motioning to the giant print with the tip of his blade. 

Lance looks up and out further into the darkness where the tracks lead. Nothing. A cold chill grips his stomach. Whatever left these tracks is  _ huge _ . 

So where is it? 

Kolivan pulls in a sharp breath and grabs Lance’s arm in a bruising grip. He pulls Lance along with him, fast enough that Lance has a hard time keeping up. 

“Kolivan?” 

“It’s a fiend. We need to keep an eye on the cart and get to the Fire Temple as soon as possible,” Kolivan says, voice tense and thin with stress. 

“Fiend?” 

“A powerful demon. Right now isn’t the time to go looking for it. The prints looked like it left but I don’t trust it. Keep your blade out.”

* * *

 

Kolivan hasn’t made the trek up to Mt. Alfor in close to a decade, but he can still see these paths in bitter winds and blowing snow. He can imagine the jagged, familiar shapes of the mountain against the sky in his mind's eye in as much detail as seeing them on a clear day. This mountain is much of his childhood, the beginning of what he’s been molded into today.  

And the fiend bothers him. Mt. Alfor was a holy place. Home to not one god, but two, and origin of them all. Even lesser demons were a rarity on this mountain. Greater demons were unheard of. Kolivan walks alongside the cart, watching the horse blow mist as it struggles to pull the heavy load through the rapidly deepening snow and he knows things must be worse than he could have imagined leaving from Aureolin. 

What had happened that would allow a  _ fiend  _ to live in this place? 

He almost doesn’t want to believe it, they were so rare, even in the places of the world where the gods’ protection was weakest. They were leaders in their own realm; intelligent, powerful, and dangerous even to their own. He could have been wrong reading the prints: he hasn’t seen one in decades and while three of the prints matched what he himself had marked in the book over it in the Moon Temple, the fourth was an anomaly he’d never seen anywhere before. 

The tall, fortified walls of the Fire Temple creep into view through the thick blowing snow, close after being so obscured. Kolivan wants to trot ahead and scope it out, but he stays near the cart, and drops back to walk with Lance behind it lest something decide to creep up on them. 

Peb pulls the cart to a stop about twenty feet from the front gate and Kolivan rounds it, approaching the gate. His mouth drops open, his call cut short seeing the deep gashes cut into the rough hewn logs. He touches one, and it’s deep enough for him to fit his fingers in to the second knuckle. He looks up, ears turning back as Lance trots up behind him and Peb hops out of the cart to toss another blanket across the horse’s back. 

“Are they okay?” Lance asks, craning his neck to look at the top most marks, a good eight or ten feet up the wall. Well short of the top. Still…

“I don’t know,” Kolivan says softly, then, shouting above the wind. “Lookout! We’re three Galra bringing supplies from Aureolin. Please open the gates and allow us in!” Long seconds of silence follows. Long enough for Koilvan to wonder if he’s shouting at corpses, imagining the courtyard just beyond this gate awash with frozen blood and the ravaged remains of red robed acolytes. But then he sees a tiny flash of movement along the top of the wall. 

A small black cat. 

It appears, looks down at them with a curious twitch of its tail, then hops down on the far side of the wall again as silently as it came. Calls come from the courtyard, muffled and barely audible through wood and storm. Kolivan doubts Lance even hears much of it. He steps back and the gate opens, pushed to the side along a track by three acolytes. Two more come out to greet them and lead Peb and the cart inside towards the stable.

The inside of the Fire Temple is just as Kolivan remembers: not just a temple, but essentially a small fort. There is no town surrounding either the Fire Temple, or the Wind Temple up on the peak. The fortress like walls had started out first as short windbreaks, then gradually grew into full walls over the years as they expanded, with gardens and a small handful of livestock needing to be protected from both weather and wildlife. There was the temple itself, of course. Towards the east was a stable, a snowed in, staked out area with the pitiful remnants of a frozen, half grown garden that had withered away in the unnatural winter. Leading back Kolian knows there are pens, in which he can hear the muted bleating of goats. On the west were a row of small huts, a combination of store houses and overflow housing for the Fire Temple’s best source of income, the tourists come to visit the hot springs beneath the temple itself. 

A young man waits for them on the steep steps leading to the temple’s elevated entrance, the black cat twining around his calf. He’d been a boy the last time Kolivan had seen him, hiding shyly in his father’s shadow. But Kolivan recognizes him instantly. He looks so much like his mother. 

“Keith,” he greets. He offers his hand and Keith easily grips his forearm in the Galra fashion. He turns slightly and does the same to Lance as Kolivan introduces them to each other. 

“From the look on your face, I think you might already have an idea of what we’re dealing with,” Keith says. The cat mews and Lance kneels to pick it up and cradle it against his chest. 

“It’s cold as hell, for one,” Kolivan puffs. Keith only chuckles and waves them into the temple’s entryway. They’re actually on the second floor, as the floor beneath them is built over the hot springs themselves. The floor thuds hollowly beneath their feet, but more importantly, it’s blessedly warm. Lance shivers. 

“It’s late spring, why is it so cold here?” He glances to Kolivan. “Could it be connected to the fiend?” Keith looks uncomfortable, but not surprised, which tells Kolivan he’s come to the same conclusion. While not a Galra himself, Krolia  _ is _ , and Kolivan had little doubt she’s been teaching him all she can. 

“Possibly,” Kolivan says. “But a fiend shouldn’t be allowed to  _ exist  _ on this mountain. What happened?”

“The fiend and the cold isn’t all there is though,” Keith says. “Kolivan, there’s--” He cuts himself off. “Come on. Shiro can explain it better than me.” 

Kolivan’s heart drops to the pit of his stomach. Shiro was an acolyte of the Wind Temple. What was he doing here when it was so dangerous out?

Keith leads them further into the temple, past the public entrance and into the private quarters. This end must be directly over the springs as warmth permeates the air and begins to thaw Kolivan’s frozen hands. 

Keith stops a door halfway down the hall and opens it only enough to poke his head in. The cat hops out of Lance’s arms and slips fluidly through the crack. Keith talks in a hushed voice for a few seconds before he steps back and opens the door for them, waving them in ahead. “I’ll go uh.. See if there’s any tea I can make you out of the supplies you brought.” 

Kolivan nods his thanks and enters, only to stop short as his heart jerks so hard it pains his chest. He hasn’t seen Shiro in years either. Not since he was a young man just a few months into his stay at the Wind Temple. Kolivan frowns, comparing his memory of the perky young man to the exhausted adult in front of him, laboring to sit up against the wall his bed rests along. Kolivan steps in quickly to help him. Shiro’s pale, his skin littered in greenish bruises well on their way to healing. His right arm, or, Kolivan realizes with a start, what remains of it, is bandaged tightly. 

“Gods, Shiro, what happened to you?” he asks. In the doorway, Lance croaks. Shiro gives a weak chuckle and rests his head against the wall. While Kolivan and Lance sit at the table the cat mews questioningly at Shiro before climbing into his lap. 

“Hey Nib,” Shiro coos, scratching it between its ears. He takes a deep breath. “Well, I wish I could tell you exactly, but despite what Keith probably said to you I don’t really know much in depth. Probably a month ago, as we were doing the evening ceremonies, the sky just… went black. In an instant. One minute I could see the sun in the window and the next it was dark as…” Shiro pauses, brow furrowed. “Not even like night. Like a closed room with no windows, or a cellar without a lantern. There was  _ nothing _ .” 

Kolivan crosses his arms over the table. His whole body thrums to know what happens but he says nothing and gives Shiro the time he needs to put his words together. “I went outside; I was close to the front doors at the time. I couldn’t see more than ten feet in front of me and the darkness was like… a wall. Or a black fog. I thought I could see movement. And then people started screaming.” 

Shiro goes pale and quiet for a long time. He looks at the cat, stroking its back slow and steady as if grounding himself. Kolivan doesn’t prod. He’s processing it himself. A black fog? A sudden darkness? This isn’t something he’s ever heard of, much less encountered before. He clenches his fists hard enough to ache, claws digging into his own sleeves. Lance sets his hand on his arm but he barely feels it. 

“As far as I know, I’m the only one who made it out. I don’t… I don’t know what happened to the others. Nib here,” he says, rubbing the cat’s ear. “Found me just outside and started leading me down the mountain. Keith gave her to me as a gift a couple years ago, and since she’s made the trip between these two temples so many times on her own I just trusted her to know where she was going. She saved me.” 

“Uhm…” Lance starts, looking uncomfortably between Kolivan and Shiro. “Can I… what happened to your arm then?” 

“The fiend followed him,” Keith says as he steps into the room and nudges the door closed with his foot. He sets a tray of cups and a kettle on the table. Shiro gives Keith a grateful smile as Keith starts pouring cups. “Sorry it’s a bit weak. Even after we figure out how to get rid of this mess we still have to make those supplies last long as we can.” He sets Kolivan and Lance’s glasses in front of them before he sits close by Shiro’s side and gently, affectionately, presses it into his hand.

“It appeared with a red light…” Shiro says, then cuts himself off behind a sip of tea. Keith takes over again.  

“He made it within a couple miles of here before the fiend appeared and attacked him. Nib led me to him afterwards. The son of a bitch destroyed his arm to the point we had to amputate it,” Keith says. His mouth presses into a tight line and Kolivan realizes this hurts him almost as much as it does Shiro. 

“The fiend is undoubtedly connected then,” Kolivan says, unable to keep the frustrated growl out of his voice. What a tangled mess. “I’ll admit, I don’t have much of an idea for the rest, but the fiend is the most immediate danger. The Fire Temple needs to be able to trade and get supplies and we need a safe passage to the Wind Temple to even figure out what’s happening up there.” He takes a slow, deep breath. His childhood home was in shambles, people he grew up with and cared for likely gone. But he couldn't do anything about that now-- he has to tamp it back. Deal with it later. Solve the problem right in front of him first and deal with his emotions when it was safe to do so, if they were even still there. 

“Lance,” he says softly. Lance gives him a small, shy smile. He squeezes his arm, silently asking him if he’s okay. Kolivan ignores it. He must. “Show Keith those stones we have. He might know something.” 

When Lance reaches into his back and pulls out those glowing stones, Keith’s eyes go wide, shining. 

**Author's Note:**

> [quiddid](http://quiddid.tumblr.com/) on tumblr
> 
> [ashcott](https://ashcott.tumblr.com/) is also to blame


End file.
